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St. Thomas Hospital

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St. Thomas Hospital was a hospital and parish church dedicated to St. Thomas Becket (Stow 1598, sig. Y7v). Originally located in St. Mary Overies Priory Close, St. Thomas Hospital was relocated to the eastern side of Long Southwark near Thieves’ Lane in the thirteenth century (Walford). During the Dissolution of the Monastaries the religious hospital was dissolved. In 1552, the location was bought by the City of London, who transformed the site into a workehouse for the poore and idle persons of the citie (Stow 1598, sig. Z2v). John Stow notes that during this transition, the church connected to the hospital continued to operate as a parish church (Stow 1598, sig. Z2v).
St. Thomas Hospital remained in Southwark until the nineteenth century, when it was relocated to Lambeth. The early modern location of St. Thomas Hospital is depicted near the bottom of the Agas map, though it is not labelled. It is also depicted on Rocque and Pine’s 1746 map (A Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark with Contiguous Buildings), where it is labelled St. Thomas’s Hospital.
Eighteenth-century engraving of St. Thomas Hospital by W. H. Toms. Image courtesy of the Welcome Collection.
Eighteenth-century engraving of St. Thomas Hospital by W. H. Toms. Image courtesy of the Welcome Collection.

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