Royal Observatory Greenwich begins £77m renovation

A lift tower will be built for the Great Equatorial Telescope, currently only accessible via a small spiral staircase

Greenwich's Royal Observatory is improving access to its buildings and creating new educational and events spaces in a £77m project.

A lift tower will be built to the Great Equatorial Telescope, which is currently only accessible via a small spiral staircase.

Four new interactive astronomy galleries, a covered courtyard named Astronomers Court to house live science events, and a roof terrace to live stream celestial events will be built, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Work began last month and is due to be completed by spring 2028, with the Peter Harrison Planetarium closed while construction takes place.

A new entrance pavilion is also being created to better direct people from Greenwich Park into the Royal Observatory, which is part of a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Four new interactive astronomy galleries will be built to improve public understanding of astronomy

Paddy Rodgers, director of the Royal Museums Greenwich, said: "This is the sort of treasure that we want to make sure people can access, to understand a little bit more about the work that is done here.

"We also want to bring joy to people and deliver on the original remit of the observatory, to improve the public understanding of astronomy."

Mr Rodgers said he hoped the First Light project would "give people the opportunity to have their curiosity sparked" like his daughter had, who first visited the observatory aged 13 and recently completed a masters in physics and astrophysics.

The Great Equatorial Telescope, the centrepiece of the project, is the 10th-largest telescope of its kind ever built and is housed in the Observatory's onion dome.

The transformation is being funded through the Royal Museum Greenwich's own reserves, government funding, and external grants and donations.

This includes £9.7m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, awarded on 7 October to mark World Space Week.