LocationEngland
LB Bromley
West Wickham (BR4)
Hawes Down Junior School, The Mead
Distance (S) from Greenwich
OS map detailsOS Explorer: 161 or 162
OS grid refTQ 39191.66078
(539191,166078)
WGS84 lat/long51.376700, -0.001484
TypeSchool | Sculpture | Obelisk/Pillar | Sundial
Marking date1939 (completed 1951) & c. 2000
AccessRestricted, but visible from public footpath(s)
Greenwich Meridian Marker; England; LB Bromley; West Wickham (BR4)
North
North

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South
South

Currently viewing images from 04 Jun 2017
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04 Jun 2017
19 Nov 2009
23 Nov 2008
06 Jun 2007
15 Apr 2007
29 Oct 2006
06 Jun 2005

In the summer of 1953, there was a flurry of correspondence in The Times about the marking of the Greenwich Meridian up and down the country. On 7 July, the Head Master of Hawes Down County Secondary School – the school that then occupied this site – had a letter published. In it, he described how the Meridian was marked in the ‘sports field of the school by two obelisks and a sundial on a concrete foundation laid on the meridian’ and that ‘that the project was begun in 1939, suspended during the war and completed by staff and boys in 1951.’ The present markings in broadly the same location date from the time of the millennium. Each of the sculptural forms is faced with glazed tiles, each one of which was made by a different child or member of staff. The June 2007 image set contains detailed images. No visible trace of the 1939 marking remains.