Queen's House
The first Classical building in England, free in Greenwich, home to the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I and the spiralling Tulip Stairs where a famous ghost photo was taken.
The lowdown
Tucked between the Maritime Museum and the river is a cool white villa that changed English architecture. The Queen's House was designed by Inigo Jones and finished in 1635, the first truly Classical building in the country, and walking into its calm symmetrical rooms is free.
It is now an art gallery for Royal Museums Greenwich, and the walls hold real treasures, the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I with the defeated Spanish fleet behind her, plus Turners, Gainsboroughs and a fine run of maritime painting. The Great Hall is a perfect cube, a piece of mathematics you can stand inside.
The showpiece is the Tulip Stairs, the first geometric self-supporting spiral staircase in Britain, curling up in a perfect blue and white helix. It is also famous for a 1966 photograph that appears to show a shrouded figure climbing it, so look up as you pass.
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