Greenwich's Painted Hall tour is a unique adventure

Lovers of the English language bristle at casual abuse of the word “unique”. An adjective that should be used to describe the exceptionally rare and precious now seems to find its way into marketing copy for everything from laundry detergent to your corner restaurant. “Once in a lifetime” follows not that far behind in casual misuse.

Right now, and for just a few weeks longer, you can have an experience in Greenwich that … quite literally … gives you full rights to use that language. All you need to do is lay out £10, don a high visibility vest and follow your guide up four flights of scaffolding to get within inches of one of England’s greatest works of art.

The painted hall within the Old Royal Naval College is a kind of Georgian Sistine Chapel. Like its Italian cousin, this is one monumental room, painted wall and ceiling by the same artist for demanding patrons with very particular political messages in mind. Michelangelo’s mission was to glorify god. James Thornhill’s to glorify the Hanoverian dynasty, and the Glorious Revolution that preceded them to keep the throne Protestant. With his swirling clouds, cavorting deities, architectural elements and haughty aristocrats, Thornhill is as grandly bombastic as any Italian. In fact, in an era where it was still common to import Italians to paint palatial decorative schemes (witness Antonio Verrio’s Heaven and Hell rooms at Burghley House), Thornhill proved the English could do it for themselves.

The painted hall has always been a major tourist attraction, of course, but you’ve never been able to get this close. (Even if you've never been there, there's a good chance you've seen it on screen as this is a favourite filming location for historical drama.)

Roughly once every 100 to 125 years, the ceiling needs to be cleaned. Now, for only the third time in its history, scaffolding fills the hall so restorers can get at the paintings. And, much like the Sistine Chapel renovation that finished in 1999, Thornhill’s modern restorers are stripping off layers of varnish applied in well-meaning, but ultimately damaging, earlier efforts to reveal the luminous glory of the original colours.

Tours allow you to see the restorers at work and are escorted by a guide who explains both the process of cleaning and what’s going on in the vast series of paintings. One of the most moving sights of the visit is a jar full of discarded, oversized cotton buds that have been used to gently swab the ceiling. They've picked up so much dirt, they look like pieces of charcoal. It's also interesting to see how little fine detail is filled in on the figures. When you're standing far below, the almost-impressionistic flow of colours melds into realistic detail. This close, it's important to have the guide with you to explain what's going on. There's William and Mary, ascending to heaven in a blaze of glory. Above them, Apollo in his sun chariot leads the way. Gods and legends populate the clouds around them. They might have saved Great Britain for the Protestant faith but, ironically, it's a pagan pantheon that sweeps them to heaven.

Prows of massive ships occupy either end of the ceiling, showing off Britain's naval might. The men dining in the hall below, after all, would have been retired Royal Navy seamen. There's even a sprinkling of significant historic figures, and one Naval pensioner painted in to give his colleagues below a sense that everyone was included in this triumph. 

Beyond the Painted Hall, a stroll around Greenwich is always a delight. Just across the grand courtyard from the Hall is the Seamen's Chapel, a miracle of tromp l'oeil painting with a blue-and-white Wedgwood-inspired ceiling. It's one of James "Athenian" Stuart's masterpieces. 

The two magnificent ranges of Georgian architecture that these rooms sit in, facing each other through grand, columned arcades, are arms leading up to the Queen's House. Actually about a century older, this small palace was one of the first Palladian buildings in England. Though started for Anne of Denmark, it's most associated with Queen Henrietta Maria, a woman whose artistic taste was almost as good as her political instincts were bad. (She certainly contributed to the mess that led her husband, Charles I, to execution.) There's little of the original furnishing or decoration inside; the architecture itself, an exquisite circular staircase with sinuous wrought iron foliage and one exuberant Renaissance-style painted ceiling are all Henrietta Maria would recognise.

It's still worth a wander through, however, because the National Maritime Museum has moved some of its best paintings here, and other national collections have lent nautical masterpieces. The freshly-restored Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I is probably the grandest example. The main hall, which long ago lost its original decoration, has been given over to a modern art installation by Richard Wright. Now thousands of 23-carat gold leaf moths flutter over the ceiling and upper walls. It's a bit jarring against the Palladian architecture, but it is beautiful.

Best of all, the Queen's House is now free. Before the renovation, it was under English Heritage's management and had an admission fee. Now it's simply an extension of the excellent, admission-free museum next door.

This is all just the tip of the tourism iceberg in Greenwich. There's the Cutty Sark Museum (another newly-restored attraction), a particularly good artisans' street market, lots of high-end food trucks, the Greenwich Mean Time line, a gorgeous park and the ability to walk under the Thames through a marvel of Victorian engineering. Well worth a day out. 

But if you want a unique, up-close look at the Painted Hall ceiling, you need to get there before the end of September. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Unless you plan to live for at least another century.