Blackwall: Virginia Quay and the Greenwich Meridian
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Blackwall: Virginia Quay and the Greenwich Meridian by Nigel Cox as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Blackwall: Virginia Quay and the Greenwich Meridian
Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 1 May 2008
The line down the middle of the avenue represents the Greenwich Meridian, and carries on up the building in the distance. Incidentally don't take your GPS receiver to this line and expect it to read 0˚ 00' 00".00000 W longitude! This is because the GPS system uses World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) longitudes which are defined, simply, in terms of the geometric centre of the Earth, whereas the Greenwich Meridian is defined in terms of the gravitational centre of the Earth, which is slightly different. 0˚ 00' 00".00000 W longitude on your GPS should appear about 100 metres east of this location, near the Virginia Quay memorial, whereas you should read about 0˚ 00' 05".7 W longitude here on this line. As an aside (!) this is the Barratt-built Virginia Quay housing development.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.507316
Longitude
-0.002848