
The Hospital of St Thomas in Southwark (“70” on Wyngaerde panorama of 1543) was originally founded by Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, sometime around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The foundation was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early sixteenth century. However, the hospital buildings, which had come to be owned by the citizens of London, remained in use for the accommodation of “poor, impotent, lame and diseased people”, and the chapel, as a parish church (Stow, “Survey of London”).

The hospital survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the Great Fire of Southwark in 1676, but was nonetheless rebuilt, by Wren’s master mason, Cartwright, in 1702. It was subsequently substantially demolished, and its facilities relocated to Lambeth, in 1865. Only the church building remained.

It currently houses the Old Operating Theatre Museum …

… and Herb Garret).

I have to warn you that the Old Operating Theatre Museum is not for the faint-hearted – my wife fainted when we went!
Definitely worth visiting!