Old Operating Theatre

Housed in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the old St Thomas’ Hospital, the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret 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.