Place   

St Thomas' Hospital

Categories: Medicine

St Thomas' Hospital

Named after Thomas a Becket, so possibly founded after 1173 when Becket was canonised. As part of an Augustinian monastery, St Thomas’ (at the London Bridge site) was closed during the Reformation. Re-opened during Edward VI’s reign. In 1862 the railways need the hospital land so St Thomas' moved, temporarily to Royal Surrey Gardens, Walworth and then moved into its new permanent site in Lambeth in 1871. Several extensions to the buildings have been added over the years.

Our photo shows the stainless steel Revolving Torsion Fountain by Naum Gabo, 1972, in St Thomas's Hospital Garden. The water jets form part of the sculpture as they meet and shatter apart. The title suggests that perhaps the whole structure was intended to revolve but some early footage shows it operating roughly as it does now. We also like the water spilling out from the lower basin but this only happens at the left side and it's not clear whether this should be happening at all.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
St Thomas' Hospital

Commemorated ati

Edward VI statue at St Thomas's - Cartwright

This 1682 statue by Cartwright was commissioned by Clayton and was originally...

Read More

Edward VI statue at St Thomas's - Scheemaker

First erected in the second of St Thomas’s three courts, shown in a drawing h...

Read More

Florence Nightingale Garden

{Left hand plaque:} The Nightingale badge awarded between 1925 - 1996. {Cent...

Read More

Keats and Stephens

On this site, poet & apothecary John Keats, & his friend, the poet, a...

Read More

Robert Clayton statue

The inscription is quite badly damaged but we found a transcription in a 1776...

Read More

Show all 7

Other Subjects

Dr John Langdon Haydon Down

Dr John Langdon Haydon Down

Doctor specialising in mental illnesses who classified what is now called Down's Syndrome in 1862.  We think the family used 'Langdon Down' as their surname. Born Cornwall.  Aged 18, he came to Lo...

Person, Medicine

1 memorial
Annette Mendelsohn

Annette Mendelsohn

Child & adolescent psychotherapist.  Born in London to a Belgian Jewish refugee mother. First a teacher to people with learning difficulties, then a dancer, then a career in psychotherapy.  Mar...

Person, Medicine

1 memorial
Dr. Flora Murray

Dr. Flora Murray

Born near Dumfries, Scotland. The picture source explains that the bag was embroidered by a soldier patient c.1917 and that it depicts either Flora or her work and life partner Dr Louisa Garrett An...

Person, Gender Issues, Medicine, Scotland

1 memorial
Hospital for Tropical Diseases

Hospital for Tropical Diseases

The Hospital for Tropical Diseases was founded on an ex-naval ship in 1821, before moving to the Royal Greenwich Hospital, and thence to the Endsleigh Gardens site in 1920. Several further moves la...

Group, Medicine

1 memorial
Hunt's House at Guy's Hospital

Hunt's House at Guy's Hospital

Another, partial, view of this building here.  Dates approximate.

Building, Medicine

1 memorial