Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

#75

Creak up a church’s spiral stair to Europe’s oldest surviving operating theatre (1822), once serving the women’s ward of St Thomas’ Hospital. Before anaesthesia and antisepsis, speed and spectacle ruled; the timber amphitheatre puts you in the splash-zone of medical history. Next door, the herb garret evokes the apothecary—dried plants, jars and tools telling how surgery once leaned on botanicals. Small, vivid and unforgettable. Allow 45–75 minutes.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 10:30 – 17:00

Thursday: 10:30 – 17:00

Friday: 10:30 – 17:00

Saturday: 10:30 – 17:00

What's not to miss inside?

The Theatre Itself

Oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe

Steep benches and a wooden table: a classroom where lives hinged on minutes and method.

Sit quietly and time one minute; that’s longer than some pre-anaesthetic amputations.

📍 Attic of St Thomas’ Church, top level

Herb Garret

Surgery’s botanical back-story

Aromas of dried plants meet mortars, scales and jars—pain relief and poultices before modern pharma.

Match one herb to a historical use, then look up its modern descendant on a label.

📍 Attic rooms beside the theatre

Instruments & Innovation

From bone saws to antisepsis

Scarifiers, tourniquets and chloroform inhalers map the pivot from brutality to science.

Find two tools for the same job—what changed when germ theory arrived?

📍 Display cases around the amphitheatre

🤓 Fun Facts

The theatre served the women’s ward only—modesty and hospital layout kept male surgeries elsewhere.

Its survival owes much to neglect: hidden in an attic after St Thomas’ moved, the theatre was rediscovered in 1956.

The entry is via a narrow 52-step spiral stair—original access that doubles as a time machine (and a mild workout).

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