The Greenwich riverfront held a royal manor by the late Middle Ages and became Greenwich Palace under the Tudors. Henry VIII and his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I were born there, and the palace hosted court ceremony, diplomacy, entertainment, and access to the Thames. Civil War and Commonwealth use contributed to decline, and most Tudor buildings were demolished after the Restoration. Archaeological foundations survive below the present grounds, but the visible Baroque complex is not Greenwich Palace preserved or rebuilt above ground.

Queen Mary II promoted a hospital for injured and retired seamen after the wars of the 1690s, and William III issued the founding charter. Christopher Wren planned paired courts and domed ranges arranged to preserve the river view toward the Queen's House. Nicholas Hawksmoor, John Vanbrugh, Thomas Ripley, and other architects continued construction over decades. The Royal Hospital for Seamen admitted pensioners from 1705, providing lodging, food, clothing, worship, discipline, and medical care. Its monumental architecture celebrated naval power while residents lived under institutional rules.

James Thornhill painted the great dining hall between 1707 and 1726, covering walls and ceiling with an elaborate allegory of monarchy, Protestant succession, commerce, and maritime victory. Known today as the Painted Hall, it functioned for ceremonial dining and later displayed the body of Admiral Nelson before his 1806 funeral. James Stuart's chapel interior followed a destructive fire in the eighteenth century. The hospital closed in 1869, and the Royal Naval College occupied the buildings from 1873, training officers in navigation, engineering, strategy, and science until 1998.

The University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban now use much of the complex, while the Greenwich Foundation cares for principal public areas. Conservation of the Painted Hall completed in 2019 cleaned and stabilized Thornhill's original painted surfaces, repaired plaster, and improved environmental systems without repainting the entire composition anew. Historic stone, timber, domes, chapel fittings, and institutional rooms survive through continuous repair. Modern classrooms, offices, lighting, services, accessibility routes, and event equipment support current use. Excavated Tudor remains remain archaeological evidence rather than a reconstructed royal palace.

The riverside grounds are generally free, while the Painted Hall and some tours require tickets and current schedules. The site forms part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site and remains an active educational, cultural, and event campus. Its history connects Tudor monarchy, the welfare and discipline of naval pensioners, imperial maritime identity, officer training, art, and adaptive reuse. Visitors should distinguish the lost Greenwich Palace below ground from Wren's purpose-built hospital and later college alterations. That separation prevents the celebrated skyline from collapsing several institutions and centuries into one imagined royal complex.