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St. Bartholomew the Great Review

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St. Bartholomew the Great

Address: Cloth Fair, West Smithfield, The City, London, EC1A 7JQ | Map It
Phone: 020/7606-5171
www.greatstbarts.com

Category: Religious Sites
Location: The City

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Fodor's Review:

Reached via a perfect half-timber gatehouse atop a 13th-century stone archway, this is one of London's oldest churches. Construction on the church and the hospital nearby was begun in 1123 by Henry I's favorite courtier, Rahere, who caught malaria and, surviving, vowed to dedicate his life to serving the saint who had visited him in his fevered dreams. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII had most of it torn down; the Romanesque choir loft is all that survives from the 12th century. The ancient church has appeared in Four Weddings and a Funeraland Shakespeare in Love. On the other side of the road, the church's namesake St. Bartholomew's Hospital (Tues.-Fri. 10-4. Free. 020/7837-0546) is home to a small museum displaying scary-looking medical instruments. Take a £5 tour at 2 PM on Friday of the Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and find out how operations were carried out before anesthetics were used. You can also see some Hogarth paintings hanging in the Great Hall. Facing both the church and the museum is Smithfield's meat market.

Cost: Church £4, museum free
Open: Church weekdays 8:30-5 (Nov.-Feb. 8:30-4), Sat. 10:30-4, Sun 8:30-8. Museum Tues.-Fri. 10-4
Tube: Barbican, Farringdon

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