The Old Royal Naval College occupies ground with a longer memory than its baroque façade suggests. The Palace of Placentia stood here first: a royal residence where Henry VIII was born in 1491, and where both Mary and Elizabeth later came into the world. Charles II intended a palace to rival Versailles on the same spot, but the money ran out. William and Mary finished the job and handed it over as a hospital for old and infirm sailors.

Christopher Wren designed the twin-domed complex. Inside the Painted Hall, James Thornhill covered every surface in baroque allegory. Nelson lay in state here after Trafalgar, his body preserved in a brandy-filled coffin for the journey from Cape Trafalgar; legend has it the sailors carrying the coffin quietly drank the brandy.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace this layered history, connecting the Tudor palace buried beneath the Painted Hall's floor to Nelson's final journey, and following the buildings from royal folly to naval charity to university campus.