#151
Opening Hours
Monday: 10:00 – 13:00
Tuesday: 10:00 – 13:00
Wednesday: 10:00 – 13:00
Thursday: 10:00 – 13:00
What's not to miss inside?
Fleming’s Laboratory
Birthplace of penicillinSee the bench, Petri dishes and simple tools that turned a stray contaminant into the most consequential drug discovery of the 20th century.
📍 Recreated room at St Mary’s Hospital
Discovery Film
From observation to therapyA 10-minute overview links Fleming’s 1928 note to the Oxford group’s proof in 1940 and wartime scale-up.
📍 Small screening nook beside the lab
Poster & Object Room
The path to patientsPeriod photos, notes and apparatus trace early trials and production hurdles that shaped modern antibiotics.
📍 Gallery next to the lab
🤓 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.
