The observatory here is the most substantial building extant from George III's developments at Kew. It was early in his reign that he commissioned his mother's favourite architect, Sir William Campbell, to design and build it. It allowed the king to observe the transit of Venus (i.e., the passage of the planet between the observer and the sun) in 1769. The building wiped out a hamlet at West Sheen.

O/S Co-ords:1710.7570
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Rural Walks around Richmond