The foundation from which the hospital derived was created in association with Saint Mary Overie in Southwark and separated from that church in the 13th century when buildings, of which there are remains, were set up on the east side of Borough High Street. The buildings here, of 1868-71, were designed for the hospital by Henry Currey when the Charing Cross Railway Company took over most of the Borough High Street site. Currey's design was particularly concerned to allow the maximum ventilation. The Thames in the 19th century produced a great deal of absolutely horrifically foul air and there were many proponents of the theory that disease was spread by a miasma of this pollution. The waterfront beside the hospital was also the only 19th century effort at providing any sort of civic show on the south bank of the river. This followed the construction of the Albert Embankment in 1866-9 in which a low level sewer that ran from Putney was sited. Currey's hospital consisted of seven pavilions (each with three wards over a ground floor housing services) and a chapel. Four of the pavilions, following substantial bomb damage, have been replaced by modern buildings. The several schemes since the second world war for rebuilding have each been only partially completed which probably accounts for their hardly providing any great aesthetic experience. But then that is not a primary concern of the contemporary hospital.

O/S Co-ords:3062.7941
Source(s):

The Buildings of England - London 2: South