Fleming Museum

#153

⭐ Highlights

Fleming’s Laboratory

Birthplace of penicillin

See the bench, Petri dishes and simple tools that turned a stray contaminant into the most consequential drug discovery of the 20th century.

Stand by the window bench and imagine noticing a clear ‘halo’ where bacteria failed to grow.

📍 Recreated room at St Mary’s Hospital

Discovery Film

From observation to therapy

A 10-minute overview links Fleming’s 1928 note to the Oxford group’s proof in 1940 and wartime scale-up.

Watch first, then re-enter the lab and spot items mentioned on screen.

📍 Small screening nook beside the lab

Poster & Object Room

The path to patients

Period photos, notes and apparatus trace early trials and production hurdles that shaped modern antibiotics.

Match one labelled object (loop, plate, bottle) to a step in the discovery timeline.

📍 Gallery next to the lab

Opening Hours

Monday: 10:00 – 13:00

Tuesday: 10:00 – 13:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 13:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 13:00

A compact, story-rich site at St Mary’s Hospital where Alexander Fleming observed a mould killing bacteria in 1928. A faithful lab reconstruction, a concise film and interpretive panels carry you from that bench-top accident to the antibiotic era.

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🤓 Fun Facts

Fleming published penicillin’s antibacterial action in 1929, but therapeutic success arrived a decade later with Florey and Chain’s Oxford experiments.

Early hospitals sometimes recovered scarce penicillin from patients’ urine and reused it during wartime shortages.

Industrial deep-tank fermentation—borrowed from food science—made mass penicillin possible by the mid-1940s.