Revealing and Restoring Bart’s Hospital

St Bartholomew’s Hospital, or ‘Bart’s’ as it is most commonly known, is Britain’s oldest hospital. At its historic heart, before now not particularly accessible to the public, is the North Wing. 

In the summer of 2023, a project began to restore the North Wing, including the Great Hall and the astounding, painted staircase by London history heavyweight William Hogarth. 

The whole project is costing roughly £10 million with £6 million coming from the National Lottery fund and the rest largely from private donations. After the restoration project is completed later this year, the Great Hall and Hogarth Stair will be opened up to the public for guided tours, workshops and events. 

They are however currently running fascinating heritage tours, whilst the scaffolding is still up. I therefore donned a fetching hard hat, high-vis and boots and had a look around.

The Hospital’s Origins

St Bartholomew’s Hospital was established in 1123, meaning last year, in 2023, they celebrated their 900th birthday, certainly not a milestone to be taken lightly. It was set up in tandem with the Priory of St Bartholomew by a courtier of King Henry I called Rahere.

Sources differ but Rahere was possibly a jester in the court of Henry I. Rahere travelled to Rome on a pilgrimage, where he fell ill. Whilst ill, it is said, he had a vision of St Bartholomew, who urged him, after he had recovered, to return to London and establish a priory and hospital in St Bartholomew’s name to look after the poor, sick and destitute of the city. 

He recovered and did just that, establishing his priory and hospital outside the walls, to the North of the City.

A King Meddles

The hospital went through a bit of a sticky period during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Monastic lands and wealth were seized across the country during the Dissolution of the Monasteries of the 1530s, which were then generally sold off to favoured courtiers and aristocrats. The Priory was dissolved in 1538 and continues partially today as the parish church of St Bartholomew the Great. I have written a blog post on what to look out for in the church here. 

The hospital was allowed to keep operating, however Henry had stripped them of the rents from their lands and therefore their source of income. They ran on reserves for a few years but pleaded Henry to give return their lands to them.

Eight years later in 1546 he did this and ‘refounded’ the hospital, handing it over to the City of London. The hospital’s official name until the mid 20th century was the very snappy: “House of the Poore in Farringdon in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII’s Foundation”. It was however always referred to as ‘Bart’s’. 

The gatehouse dates from 1702 and displays the only public full statue of King Henry VIII in London.

The oldest surviving part of the hospital today is the church of St Bartholomew the Less. The tower and west facade date from the 15th century. 

The Grand Rebuilding

In the early 18th century, it was decided that a rebuilding of the hospital was required to modernise and reflect new ideas around the Enlightenment and medicine. The man chosen for that task was architect James Gibbs. 

He designed the hospital around the idea of an Italian piazza, with a large piazza or square in the centre surrounded by four blocks. 

The first block to be built was the North Wing, the administrative block, with the whole project taking around 40 years to complete. 

The hospital has been added to, enhanced and expanded over the centuries since. 

The Great Hall

Inside the North Wing is the Great Hall.

This is what the Great Hall currently looks like.

Around the walls are boards, dating mostly from the 18th century, that display the names of all the donors to the rebuilding of the hospital. 

Many have donated £50 and over. This was one of the requirements for becoming a Governor of the hospital, a very prestigious position that afforded many benefits. When it was a purely charitable organisation, pre-NHS, governors could recommend people to be treated there and acted almost like a gentleman’s club for the great and good of the time. The records go all the way back to the 1500s to demonstrate a long legacy of giving. 

Scan the lists and many familiar names will pop out, Gresham, Twining (of the tea), Sir Robert Peel, John Soane. Some are very personal, such as this donation, made ‘for attention paid to a deceased brother while a patient’. 

There are none post-1947, because this is when the NHS then took over the running of the hospital, bar a few names that have been included who have donated to the current restoration project. 

The scaffolding is quite ingenious by the way, none of the weight is being applied to the floor or ceiling of the Great Hall; it is all being supported by structures outside the building, to make sure no damage is done to the historic structures. 

The Ceiling 

We went up another level to get a closer look at the amazing ceiling of the Great Hall.

It is an intricate stucco ceiling, the work of Swiss-Italian master plasterer Jean Baptiste St Michele. This ceiling is his only known work in the UK.

The design includes oak leaves, laurel wreaths and bell flowers.

There are multiple fireplaces, so the soot from those combined with cigarette smoke, left a thick layer of grime. The ceiling has therefore been hand cleaned for five weeks as part of the restoration. There has been a little bit of retouching of the gilding but generally it was in a good condition. 

The Stained Glass Window

The Great Hall will have its stained glass window, called the ‘Charter Window’, refitted during the restoration.

Dating from the 17th century, The Charter Window was originally located in the medieval hall of the hospital before moving into the current Great Hall in the 1840s. It depicts Henry VIII giving the charter of the hospital to Thomas Vicary, a physician and surgeon who became the Hospital’s first Superintendent.

It was partially damaged in the Second World War and has had a number of restorations to it over the centuries, with possibly only the bottom portion being original 17th century. 

The Hogarth Stair 

Finally, onto the Hogarth Stair. A beautiful, grand Great Hall, needs a beautiful, grand staircase to enter it from. 

The Hogarth Stair is decorated with two huge canvases by William Hogarth. Originally an expensive Italian artist was going to be employed by Hogarth said he would do it for free. 

William Hogarth had grown up very nearby, on Bartholomew Close, and wanted to show that English artists could produce work just as good as the Italians. He is of course generally best known for his satirical paintings and prints, such as A Harlot’s Progress, but he wanted an opportunity to work on this scale and to show that he understood the tropes of classical paintings. 

Hogarth painted the stairway from 1735-1737 and produced a rendition of the Pool of Bethesda. This is the parable in which Jesus heals a paralysed man at a pool in Jerusalem.

They are both medically themed, with the other canvas being a depiction of the Good Samaritan. They are full of depictions of patients with various ailments. 

It is thought that doctors would test their students at the hospital by bringing them to the staircase and getting them to diagnose the subjects based on their symptoms. 

In terms of the restoration, any retouching is extremely minimal, only over where they have been previously retouched and over the seams. They are mostly just being carefully cleaned to bring them back to their former glory. 

Visiting

Find out more about their Anatomy of the North Wing tours here. They are well worth doing, particularly to get that unique opportunity to see the ceiling at close quarters.

They also ordinarily have a great small museum, all about the history of the hospital. It is currently closed whilst the renovations are going on but will reopen in September 2025.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s hidden historical sites below!