The John Roan School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school and sixth form located in Greenwich, south-east London, England.
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Vanbrugh Castle is a house designed and built by John Vanbrugh around 1719 for his own family. It is located on Maze Hill on the eastern edge of Greenwich Park in London, to the north of Blackheath, with views to the west past the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich down to the Thames reaching as far as the Houses of Parliament.
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Queen Elizabeth's Oak was a veteran oak tree in Greenwich Park, London. Seeded in the 12th century, the tree formed part of the grounds of the Palace of Placentia, home to the Tudor royal family. Henry VIII is said to have danced around the tree with Anne Boleyn. Their daughter Elizabeth I, after whom the tree is named, is said to have picnicked beneath its canopy, or else within its hollow trunk. When the palace grounds became Greenwich Park, the hollow tree was used as a prison for criminals caught on the grounds. The tree died in the 19th century but was left standing, partly supported by ivy. It fell in a storm in June 1991 and has been left lying where it fell, protected by a fence and marked with a plaque.
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Maze Hill is an area in Greenwich and Blackheath, in south-east London, lying to the east of Greenwich Park, and west of the Westcombe Park area of Blackheath. It is part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and takes its name from the main thoroughfare, Maze Hill. It gives its name to Maze Hill railway station.
The road is believed to have taken its name from Sir Algernon May, who lived nearby until 1693, or after Robert May who lived there in 1683. 'Moys Hill' is marked on Rocque's 1745 map, 'Maize Hill' on Greenwood's 1827 map, and 'Maze Hill' on Bacon's map of 1888.
While working as surveyor to the Royal Hospital, the architect Sir John Vanbrugh lived in a house of his own design, now known as Vanbrugh Castle, overlooking the park on what is now Maze Hill. Immediately to the north of Vanbrugh Castle was Mayfield Lodge, once used to print The Kentish Mercury, and from 1861 a Rescue Society for Females home which was demolished in 1906.
The southern end of Maze Hill is adjacent to an area marked on Rocque's 1745 map as 'Vanbrugh Fields', with his name surviving in local street names including 'Vanbrugh Park' and 'Vanbrugh Hill'.
Royal Ordnance Factories F.C. played some matches at Maze Hill.
One of the two sites of the comprehensive secondary school, The John Roan School, is situated at the southern end of Maze Hill. Greenwich District Hospital was sited at the northern end of Maze Hill until its closure in 2001 and demolition in 2006; the site is now occupied by a residential development surrounding a Royal Borough of Greenwich leisure centre, library and services complex.
The southern part of Maze Hill falls within the Blackheath Westcombe ward of the Royal Borough of Greenwich; the northern area of Maze Hill is in Peninsula Ward.
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Greenwich Park is a former hunting park in Greenwich and one of the largest single green spaces in south-east London. One of the eight Royal Parks of London, and the first to be enclosed, it covers 74 hectares, and is part of the Greenwich World Heritage Site. Surrounding the hilltop Royal Observatory and straddling the Greenwich Prime Meridian, it commands elevated views over the River Thames, the Isle of Dogs and the City of London.
The park is open year-round, and incorporates flower gardens as well as grassy spaces, a children's playground, cafés and other amenities, a bandstand, a boating lake, a pond, wooded areas, and a wildlife habitat called 'The Wilderness'. The park also contains Roman and Anglo-Saxon remains, and is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens; in 2020, it was awarded a National Lottery grant to restore historic features and add new visitor facilities. It hosted Olympic and Paralympic equestrian events during the London 2012 Summer Olympics, and accommodates runners prior to the start of the annual London Marathon.
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Greenwich is an affluent area in south-east London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the ceremonial county of Greater London, 5.5 miles east-south-east of Charing Cross. It contains the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich.
Greenwich is notable for its astronomical and maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. The town became the site of a royal palace, the Palace of Placentia, from the 15th century and was the birthplace of many Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was demolished, eventually being replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained a military education establishment until 1998, when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public; other buildings are used by the University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
The town became a popular resort in the 18th century, and many grand houses were built there, such as Vanbrugh Castle on Maze Hill and the Ranger's House near Blackheath. From the Georgian period estates of houses were constructed above the town centre. The maritime connections of Greenwich were celebrated in the 20th century, with the siting of the historic vessels Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV next to the river front, and the National Maritime Museum in the former buildings of the Royal Hospital School in 1934.
Historically an ancient parish in the Blackheath Hundred of Kent, the town formed part of the growing conurbation of Victorian London in the 19th century. When the County of London, an administrative area designed to replace the Metropolitan Board of Works, was formed in 1889, the parish merged with those of Charlton-next-Woolwich, Deptford St Nicholas and Kidbrooke to create the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. When local government in London was again reformed in 1965, it merged with most of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, creating what is now the Royal Borough of Greenwich, a local authority district of Greater London.