Science Museum Near Me at London Bridge: Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret

A narrow 52-step spiral staircase inside the tower of St Thomas' Church is the only public way up to the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, at 9a St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RY. At the top is a women's operating theatre built in 1822, which the museum bills as Europe's oldest surviving one. It opens Thursday to Sunday from 10.30am to 5pm, last admission 4.15pm, and an adult ticket is £10 including donation. If science museum near me brings up London Bridge, this attic is the most memorable forty-five minutes in Southwark.

Prices shown on the museum's site include a donation: £10 for adults, £8 for concessions, £6.50 for children aged 16 and under, and free for children five and under. A family ticket for two adults and two children, or one adult and three children, is £22, and each extra child on it costs £1. Carers go free. Online tickets are valid all day but cannot be bought for the same day, so if you decide on a whim, walk up and buy at the desk, subject to space.

The staircase is narrow and steep, and because two people cannot pass comfortably, a traffic-light system controls the flow: wait at the bottom until the light turns green. The floors upstairs are uneven, there is no site lift, and an accessible entrance is available only on request. Ear defenders and braille or audio information can be borrowed.

The theatre is a semicircle of steep wooden standing tiers, called stands, packed around a plain wooden table under a skylight. Students from the hospital crowded these rails to watch surgery performed without anaesthetic, which only reached London operating theatres in the late 1840s. The room was built for patients from the women's ward next door, Dorcas Ward, and stands are close enough to the table that you understand at once how little privacy the women had.

Look for the box of sawdust beneath the table, the instruments laid out in cases along the walls, and the metal operating table that replaced wood in later years. The collection is grouped under Surgery and Antiseptics, Anaesthetics, Pharmacy and Hospitals. Be aware before you bring children: human remains, anatomical specimens and prosections are on display in the cases, and the museum states this plainly on its visiting page.

Before it was an operating theatre, the attic was the herb garret of St Thomas' Hospital, used to store and dry medicinal plants in the eighteenth century. Today the timber roof space is laid out again with bunches of dried plants and rows of glass jars. Displays explain how the hospital apothecary turned roots, barks and leaves into remedies, many of which turn out to be ancestors of modern drugs.

Among the objects is a child's cot from the old Evelina Hospital for Children and a run of hospital admission books, which give the names and ailments of real patients. A free digital guide with an audio tour is available on your own phone, so bring headphones. The average visit lasts about 45 minutes, which makes it easy to slot in before lunch at Borough Market around the corner.

St Thomas' Church opened in 1703 and is the oldest surviving structure from the original Southwark site of St Thomas' Hospital. The attic was converted into an operating theatre in 1822 and used until 1862, when the hospital moved across the river to Lambeth and the room was sealed up and forgotten. It was rediscovered in 1956, and the surgeon Lord Russell Brock of Guy's Hospital started the original collection of about 300 items, 22 of them loaned by the Wellcome Institute.

It has run as an independent museum since 1962 and is governed by the Lord Brock Trust, a registered charity. That independence shows in the scale: there is no café and, importantly, no toilets on site, so use the facilities at London Bridge station before you climb. It also shows in the programme, which is quirky, small and frequently sold out.

October and December are the busiest months for events. The Museum Late: Body-Snatching Special runs on Wednesday 21 October 2026 from 17:30 to 20:00, with a talk at 18:00 and the Apothecary Bar open. The Halloween Film Night screening of Frankenstein (1931) on 27 October has already sold out, but a Free Family Day runs on the same date. A Christmas Carol performances take place on 1, 7 and 14 December 2026 at £30 per person.

For October half term the museum adds extra opening days, opening all day on Monday 26 and Wednesday 28 October, while on Sunday 1 November last entry is brought forward to 15:00. Our honest call: avoid the half-term afternoons if anyone in your party dislikes crowds, because the theatre fills quickly and the traffic-light queue on the stairs grows. A Thursday morning at opening is the quietest slot of the week.

Take the Guy's Hospital exit at London Bridge station, then look for the red-brick tower between Borough Market and The Shard. Only handbags and small backpacks are allowed inside, there is nowhere to store suitcases, and pushchairs have to be left in the foyer. Guide dogs are welcome but no other animals. Personal, non-commercial photography is fine, and a Southwark Presents Card or Team London Bridge DealCard gets two tickets for the price of one.

Afterward, walk two minutes west to Borough Market for lunch, or continue along Borough High Street to Southwark Cathedral by the river. For a second science stop on the same day, the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road is a straight ride north on the Northern line from London Bridge to Euston, and it is free, so the two make a good pairing for anyone fascinated by the history of medicine.