Time Exhibits

The Time Exhibition creates a link to past activities at the Royal Observatory

Herstmonceux was once the home of 'Greenwich Mean Time', and the 'pips' were sent to the BBC from here. At first the Earth's rotation was used as the ultimate timekeeper, but later, atomic clocks took over, accurate to one second in 300,000 years. The Earth is a less steady timekeeper and its rotation slows by more than a thousandth of a second every 100 years.

With a mixture of 'look-and-think' exhibits and fully hands-on ones, this exhibition is concerned with various aspects of Time and how it is measured.