Free Entry to the Old Operating Theatre Museum!

The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

London is famous throughout the world for the quality and breadth of its museums. While the best-known London attractions such as the Natural History Museum, the V&A and the Science Museum are certainly worth visiting on the London sightseeing trail, there are dozens of other specialist museums giving a unique insight into hundreds of subjects.

The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret is one such London museum offering a fascinating insight into the medical profession of the past. Hidden in the roof of St Thomas’ Church near London Bridge Underground and rail services, this 300-year old herb garret houses Britain’s only surviving operating theatre, complete with wooden operating table and observation stands, from which spectators witnessed surgery performed without anaesthesia or antiseptics.

Thankfully medicine today is less barbaric but the site is still used as a location for such film and TV shows as From Hell; the operating museum also has an incredible – and sometimes gory! – collection of surgical apparatus and pathological specimens as well as exhibitions covering the history of herbal physic.

If you enjoy the Old Operating Theatre Museum, remember you can visit other excellent London museums for free with London Pass including the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum.

If you are in the London Bridge area you can visit nearby London attractions such Southwark Cathedral, HMS Belfast and the Tower Of London with London Pass.

See the full list of attractions in London you can visit for free with a London Pass!