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

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

Founded as The Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children. Its first premises were at 49 Great Ormond Street a converted 17th cen...

Group, Children, Medicine

5 memorials
Andrew Marshall
1 memorial
Children who died in the Evelina at Guy's Hospital

Children who died in the Evelina at Guy's Hospital

See the Evelina Children's Hospital for more information.

Group, Children, Medicine

1 memorial
St Olave's Hospital

St Olave's Hospital

Built originally as the Rotherhithe Infirmary in the early 1870s. It became the infirmary of St Olave's Union in 1875, and was renamed St Olave's Hospital in 1930. In 1966 it became part of the Guy...

Place, Medicine

1 memorial