This card tells almost the final chapter in the Royal Observatory, but it starts with three bombs.
The first one was detonated by an anarchist in February 1894. You can read a fictionalised account in Joseph Conrad`s "The Secret Agent", published in 1907, fictionalised because the bomber was killed by his own bomb and it seems impossible, even. to find out why he was there. He certainly did not have time to tell his tale before he died. The only thing we do know is that he was a member of Club Autonomie, which is said simply to have been a meeting place for anarchists.
The second and third bombs came during the Second World War, in 1940, though the target was really the docks, nearby. In that attack, the Altazimuth Pavilion, and the Great Equatorial Building were damaged. Then, in 1944, the great Onion Dome was hit by a flying bomb.
It was decided that the collection and the workings of the Observatory could no longer stay in London at that point. There had been earlier plans to move, citing the smoke in London which often led to important viewings being obscured, and, as we find today, artificial street lighting is not helpful to astronomers. The magnetic work had already gone, disrupted by the arrival of the Underground Tube Lines, that had moved to Abinger, near Dorking. And just before the outbreak of the Second World War these plans had been re-drafted.
In 1944 it was decided to relocate to Herstmonceux Castle, the subject of today`s card, but it was not announced, or enacted until 1946, seemingly because running from London may cause a panic in the general public. Though it seems likely that a lot of the works had stopped and the equipment been sent into storage.
The Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux, was a rather lengthy title, and the last word was soon omitted. It took until 1958 for everything to be in place there, but it did not last for long, The weather was already changing, and in the late 1970s the decision was made to relocate the main Isaac Newton Telescope overseas, where visibility was better. Overseas, was on Las Palmas, one of the Canary Islands.
This led to another decision, to move the rest of the facilities to Cambridge. And that happened in 1990. Today the Greenwich buildings are but a showcase, and a learning centre, with many family attractions and displays which, in simplified form, tell snippets from the story of its past.