Housed in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the old St Thomas’ Hospital, this atmospheric museum offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients’ medicines and in 1822 an operating theatre was included. Predating anaesthetics and antiseptics, it is the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe.
Visitor Information
Opening Hours:
The museum is open to the public Thursday through Sunday from 10:30am to 5:00pm (4:15pm last admission).
The museum is also open for pre-booked groups on Monday-Wednesday. Please visit our webiste to book a group visit.
Limited disabled access. Acces via a narrow 52-step spiral staircase. Please see our full access guide here.
Events & Exhibitions
Mummies and Medicine: In Conversation with Angela Stienne
Thursday 6 October 2022 | 6:00PM
£5
Virtual Event
Join is on Thursday 6 October, for a fascinating conversation with Dr Angela Stienne, about her new book Mummified which explores the curious, unsettling and controversial cases of mummies held in French and British museums. From powdered mummies eaten as medicine to mummies unrolled in public, dissected for race studies and DNA-tested in modern laboratories, there is a lot more to these ancient remains than first meets the eye.
Mummified investigates matters of life and death, of collecting and viewing, and of interactions – sometimes violent and sometimes emotional – that question the essence of what makes us human. Mummified: The stories behind Egyptian mummies in museums by Angela Stienne is available from the Museum shop.
About the conversant:
Dr Angela Stienne is a cultural historian, museum researcher and storyteller. In 2016 she created the website Mummy Stories, which aims to reshape the discussion around human remains in museums by collecting people’s stories of their own encounters. She also founded The Lyme Museum, a small independent online museum with touring exhibitions, exploring, sharing, and amplifying the voices of individuals with invisible illnesses and disabilities.
You will have the opportunity to ask questions via the ‘chat’ function at the end of the conversation.
All income from ticket and book sales goes towards supporting the museum.
Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological and Gendered Dimensions of the World’s Oldest Surgery
Thursday 29 September 2022 | 6:15PM
£12
Join us on 29 September for a talk by Jordan Osserman about his recent book and a short art performance by FYTA.
Penises, and the things people do with them, have been subjects of controversy for a long time. Jordan Osserman’s recently published book Circumcision on the Couch draws on the discipline of psychoanalysis to examine how one thing that some people do to penises – surgically remove the foreskin – has become a site upon which vital questions of gender, race, religion, sexuality, and psychic life are negotiated. In this event, Jordan will make use of the Old Operating Theatre’s incredible surgical setting to bring to life some major themes of his book: the nineteenth-century transformation of circumcision from a religious rite to a medical procedure designed to cure ‘nervous illness’; the psychological dynamics of contemporary anti-circumcision activism (‘intactivism’); and the psychoanalytical theories that address the symbolic significance of the phallic ‘cut’. The event will include a short performance, ‘The Foreskin Warriors’, by Greek performance art duo FYTA which will address contemporary debates around circumcision and gender politics, and a panel discussion with scholars and clinicians about the book.
About the speaker:
Jordan Osserman is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex and a psychoanalyst in formation. His research interests include the medical humanities, the Lacanian tradition of psychoanalysis, left wing politics, and gender/sexuality studies.
Doors will open at 18:15 so ticket-holders have time to visit the museum before the start of the event at 19:00.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales go to support the collection and upkeep of the museum, a registered charity.
Join us on 28 September for anoher outstanding performance by Edward’s Boys, who return to the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret following their highly successful visit with “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor!” in April this year.
Mercantile Humanism is a British Academy-funded project led by Dr Angus Vine (University of Stirling), investigating the literary and cultural lives of the merchants of the early modern world. Drawing on original archival research, the project recovers a range of little known literary, dramatic, economic, and educational texts by merchant authors. It also explores documentary materials associated with mercantile culture, including merchants’ letters, booklists, account books, inventories, and ledgers, and examines the representation of merchants in contemporary texts. The project’s findings will be published in different forms and through public engagement activities, including guided document viewings at the London Metropolitan Archives, public lectures at the University of Stirling and Guildhall Library, London, and performance workshops with school and university students.
Scenes from the City: A Civic Education is the culmination of these public engagement activities. A collaboration with Edward’s Boys, the all-boy company from King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, this show explores some of the ways in which merchants were involved in the worlds of education and entertainment in early modern London, both as impresarios and fundraisers, and as the satiric targets of plays. The illustrated lecture presents ten scenes and songs from works by Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and John Webster, ranging in tone from the celebratory to the bitterly satiric. Much of the material has not been publicly performed since the early seventeenth century.
Doors will open at 18:15 so ticket-holders have time to visit the museum before the start of the event at 19:00.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales go to support the upkeep of the museum, a registered charity, and the collection.
Surgery & the Victorian Operating Theatre Live Event (Sep 2022)
Saturday 24 September 2022 | 7:00PM
£12
Join us at the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret while our team takes you to the Victorian era and goes over the surgical procedures that were done in our space. To understand the dramatic location of our operating theatre in the attic of a church, they will first explore the origins and history of Old St Thomas’ Hospital and a quick overview of the medical profession. They will then describe the most common surgical procedures that would have taken place in this original space nearly 200 years ago. Listen as the team delve into the horrors of surgery before the arrival of anaesthesia and antiseptics that helped pave the way to our modern medical procedures.
Shown live from the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe, you will see the original space located in the attic of an 18th century church, where up to 150 medical students would have once gathered and learnt their trade.
Saturday 24 September 2022.Doors will open at 09:45 for a 10:00 am start.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales goes to support the upkeep of the museum, a registered charity, and the collection.
A Quirky Evening at the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret
Wednesday 21 September 2022 | 7:00PM
£20
Come and explore the museum after dark on 21 September from 7 pm till 9 pm. You will be able to check out the exhibitions at night (creepiness guaranteed!); grab a drink at the Apothecary Wine Bar (we also have beer & soft drinks); discovery the tales of the bodysnatchers; participate in a couple of interactive experiences (no, we are still not telling what they are! We like to keep it all mysterious just so you can be pleasantly surprised!), and for the first time we welcome to the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret the talented Lunatraktors! What? You don’t know about them? Excellent! This is the perfect opportunity to experience their amazing performance in our quirky space.
If you still want to know more about Lunatraktors, they are choreographer and percussionist Carli Jefferson (she/her), and vocalist and researcher Clair Le Couteur (they/them). They began in 2017 with the post-apocalyptic question: what’s left when we’ve lost everything? Stripping folk song down to bare bones, Lunatraktors’ ‘broken folk’ blends Le Couteur’s self-taught overtones and four-octave range with a hybrid of tap dance, flamenco and body percussion, which Jefferson developed after touring with STOMP (2001-2004). The pair turned heads when their percussion-and-vocals debut This Is Broken Folk made MOJO’s Top Ten Folk Albums of 2019, and again when second studio album The Missing Star reached MOJO’s #2 in 2021.
So there you have it! A museum late to celebrate the upcoming Autumn Equinox and to continue our in person live events programme to celebrate our bicentenary.
When: Wednesday, 21 September, 2022 from 7 to 9 pm.
Where: The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret.
How much? £20 (this includes one glass of wine!)
How many tickets? We don’t have lots of space so booking soon will be the thing to do if you don’t want to miss this!
Is there a dress code? Just be your usual fabulous you!
We are looking forward to welcoming you to this extraordinary museum late!
Doors will open at 18:45 so ticket-holders have time to visit the museum before the start of the event at 19:00.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales go to support the artists and the upkeep of the museum, a registered charity.
The Artificial Womb: In Conversation with Lisa Mandemaker
Thursday 8 September 2022 | 6:00PM
Virtual Event
£5
Join us on 8 September for a controversial virtual in conversation event with Lisa Mandemaker about her speculative project the Artificial Womb. In the future, artificial wombs could replace incubators as they mimic the natural environment of the female uterus. But how will these artificial wombs look like? And how should we respond to such technology if or when it comes knocking on our cultural doors? At the Dutch Design Week 2018, Lisa Mandemaker and her team presented a speculative design proposal for an artificial womb in close collaboration with Maxima Medical Centre (MMC).
Lisa Mandemaker is a speculative designer with a strategic, contextually aware, and critical approach to research and design. She considers speculative design as a tool for debate in the public domain. In collaboration with scientists, ethicists and researchers she crafts future narratives through designed prototypes, creating invitations to reflect on possible futures. Making impactful, topical work and creating strong interventions and conversation starters are key elements to her practice. The focus is on the socio-cultural and ethical impact of emerging technologies in the fields of reproduction, health and politics. Known for her contribution to the design of the prototype of an artificial womb, she received a spot on the annual BBC 100 Women List, listing the 100 most inspiring women of the world. “By translating theoretical research into physical prototypes, we can pull possible futures closer. This gives us the opportunity to reflect and make important decisions now, for a desirable future for everyone.” “If there is a new piece of technology arriving, it’s important we don’t blindly accept it – we really need to think about what it does and means.”
You will have the opportunity to ask questions via the ‘chat’ function at the end of the conversation.
*All income from ticket sales go to support the upkeep of the museum and the collection.
Amanda cares—cripplingly, compulsively, in every moment. In days of macabre practice masquerading as medical, she would have been test subject to the most inhumane treatments imaginable. Today, people like her are treatable with tablets and talk-therapy.
But Amanda longs for something more. Something invasive.
Abrasive.
Something that cuts to the core.
And she suspects the Victorians might have been onto something…This one-woman exploration combines psychological theory and theatrical technique to create an ardent and authentic performance of care.
Amanda Grace holds an MFA in Actor & Performer Training from Rose Bruford College and Artium Baccalaurei in Theatre Studies and Psychology as well as a certification in Shakespearean Performance from RADA. Her work as a scholar of empathy and performer of care has been staged in fringe venues, around abandoned estates, and on proscenium stages across multiple continents.
Surgery & the Victorian Operating Theatre Live Event (Aug 2022)
Saturday 27 August 2022 | 10:00AM
£12
Join us at the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret while our team takes you to the Victorian era and goes over the surgical procedures that were done in our space. To understand the dramatic location of our operating theatre in the attic of a church, they will first explore the origins and history of Old St Thomas’ Hospital and a quick overview of the medical profession. They will then describe the most common surgical procedures that would have taken place in this original space nearly 200 years ago. Listen as the team delve into the horrors of surgery before the arrival of anaesthesia and antiseptics that helped pave the way to our modern medical procedures.
Shown live from the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe, you will see the original space located in the attic of an 18th century church, where up to 150 medical students would have once gathered and learnt their trade.
Saturday 27th August 2022.Doors will open at 09:45 for a 10:00 am start.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales goes to support the upkeep of the museum, a registered charity, and the collection.
Vagina Obscura: How Medicine “Discovered” the Clitoris
Wednesday 17 August 2022 | 7:00PM
£12
Female anatomy hasn’t changed much in the past two millennia—but our understanding of it certainly has. Join award-winning science journalist and author Rachel E. Gross on a journey into the past, present, and future of perhaps the most-misunderstood organ in the human body: the clitoris.
An iceberg organ with 90 percent of its bulk beneath the surface and a shape unlike anything you’ve ever seen, the clitoris is teeming with biological secrets waiting to be unlocked. Join us as we explore what scientists are finally learning about it, as well as how new insights about female genitals are helping medicine to better study and treat all bodies. Along the way, we’ll take a wild ride through space, time, and erectile tissue to see how, from Hippocrates to Freud, this unique structure has served as a window into society’s anxieties and attitudes around women. From medical pariah to feminist icon, the clitoris has come a long way—but there’s still so much to learn, thanks to an enduring veil of shame and taboo around female sexuality and pleasure.
Rachel E. Gross is a science and health reporter who writes for The New York Times, Scientific American, and the BBC. She is the author of the 2022 book Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage, a New York Times’ editors choice that Kirkus Reviews called “an eye-opening biological journey.” Before that, she was a 2018-19 Knight Science Journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the digital science editor of Smithsonian Magazine, where she launched a column about unsung women in the history of science. When not expounding on the mindblowing science of vaginas and vulvas, you can find her vegan baking, roller skating, or punning onstage. Follow her at @rachelegross.
Doors will open at 18:15 so ticket-holders have time to visit the museum before the start of the event at 19:00.
**Access is through a 52-step spiral staircase. For more information go to Access.
***All income from ticket sales go to support the upkeep of the museum, a registered charity, and the collection
The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret is delighted to take advanced bookings for school and group visits
A visit to the Museum is an experience that gives individuals a profound insight into the past, stimulating interest in a whole range of issues about past and present health. The Old Operating Theatre Museum offers an exciting interactive talk that is proven to be an inspiring and engaging experience for students following a prescribed syllabus or anyone with an interest in the social history of medicine. Group visits include a talk and exclusive access to the museum.
All schools and groups will experience our popular Victorian Surgery Brought to Life talk. This session is held in Europe’s oldest surviving surgical operating theatre where your group will experience the atmosphere of this uniquely evocative space, as the Museum Team reconstruct an operation before the arrival of anaesthesia and antiseptics. The content of this session can be adapted to suite different audiences and age groupings.
Key Stage 2-3
Duration: 90 min
Session Plan: 45 min interactive talk and demonstration + 45 min self-led museum trail
This session is ideal for year 5 and 6 primary school students who are following a local history or medical related topic.
Key Stage 4-5
Duration: 90 min
Session Plan: 45 min interactive talk and demonstration + 45 min self-led museum trail
The session is excellent for students studying:
GCSE History: Edexcel, Medicine Through Time: c.1250-Present
AQA, Health and the People (AQA)
BTEC: Health and Social Care
General Interest Groups
The Museum welcomes group visits from people who are keen to discover more about the development of medicine and surgery in Britain.
This session offers an insightful introduction into the Old St Thomas’ Hospital and 19th century healthcare as well as the Victorian Surgery demonstration. Following the talk, the group will have the opportunity to explore the Museum’s artefacts and narratives.
University and Specialist Groups
University students, academic societies and other specialist groups are welcome to visit as groups. All groups are given the standard Victorian Surgery talk followed by exclusive access, however where possible, the facilitator can adapt the session to the group’s special interest or area of study. If you have a particular area of study please indicate this in the comments box of the booking form.
Optional free self-guided local history walk
A free self-guided London Bridge local history walk is available to all groups. Many groups have supplemented their visit with our local history tour which begins at the museum and takes you across the London Bridge area. You can download the map in advance or pick up a copy in the museum.
For further information, please visit our website.
Family History
Location & Travel Links
Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret
9a St Thomas’s Street
London
SE1 9RY
