Cutty-sark (witch) Cutty-sark (witch) "Cutty sark" is 18th-century Scots for "short chemise" or "short undergarment". Hyphenated, Cutty-sark was a nickname given to the witch Nannie Dee, a fictional character created by Robert Burns in his "Tam o' Shanter", after the garment she wore. The figurehead of the tea clipper "Cutty Sark" is named after the character and a brand of Scotch whisky is named in turn for the ship. "Cutty" or "cuttie" (the diminutive form of "cuttit", from Early Middle English "cutte", "kutte", "cute" "ugly") is "short" or "stumpy". "Sark" or "serk" (from Old English "serc"; Old Norse "serk") is a "shift",
Cutty Sark in 2000. She is a Grade I listed monument and is on the Buildings At Risk Register. The gallery beneath the ship holds the world's largest collection of ships' figureheads, donated to the Society by Sydney Cumbers in 1953. From 1968 to 2004, the yacht Gipsy Moth IV, sailed singlehanded around the world by Sir Francis Chichester, was in an adjacent dry dock. This accounts for the naming of the adjacent Gipsy Moth pub. Cutty Sark station on the Docklands Light Railway is one minute's walk away, with connections to central London and the London Underground. Greenwich Pier is next