This unique museum, 32 steps up a spiral stairway in the tower of St Thomas Church (1703), is the unlikely home of Britain's oldest surviving operating theatre. Rediscovered in 1956, the attic was used by the apothecary of St Thomas’ Hospital to store medicinal herbs. The museum looks back at the horror of 19th-century medicine, all pre-anaesthetic and pre-antiseptic. You can browse the natural remedies, including snail water for venereal disease, and recoil at the fiendish array of amputation knives and blades.
Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret
South Bank
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
Windsor Castle
22.33 MILES
The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…
Westminster Abbey
1.72 MILES
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Tate Modern
0.52 MILES
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Natural History Museum
3.85 MILES
With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…
St Paul's Cathedral
0.76 MILES
Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…
Tower of London
0.58 MILES
Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…
Shakespeare's Globe
0.44 MILES
Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…
British Museum
1.93 MILES
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Nearby South Bank attractions
1. Shard
0.07 MILES
Puncturing the skies above London, the dramatic splinter-like form of the Shard has become an icon of the city and is one of the tallest buildings in…
2. Borough Market
0.07 MILES
For a thousand years, a market has existed at the southern end of London Bridge, making this still-busy ancient gathering point a superb spectacle…
3. Southwark Cathedral
0.1 MILES
Southwark Cathedral, a mostly Victorian construction but with a history dating back many centuries earlier, was the nearest church to what was once the…
4. London Bridge Experience & London Tombs
0.11 MILES
In the vaults beneath London Bridge, this historical if somewhat tacky attraction takes you on a whistle-stop tour of London’s dark past. Things ratchet…
5. Golden Hinde
0.17 MILES
Step aboard this replica of privateer Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hinde, the warship that circumnavigated the globe in 1577–1580. Kids will love exploring…
6. Hay's Galleria
0.22 MILES
This beautiful shopping arcade was an enclosed dock in the 19th century. The wharf handled all sorts of goods, although perishable foodstuff was the main…
7. Clink Prison Museum
0.22 MILES
This one-time private jail, known as the Liberty of the Clink, was used to detain debtors, prostitutes, thieves and numerous Protestants and Catholics…
8. Crossbones Garden
0.23 MILES
This peaceful, if slightly ramshackle, garden is an unconsecrated burial ground where those living on the margins of society were buried until 1853. It's…