9A, St Thomas Street

9A ST THOMAS STREET, SOUTHWARK

This is a parish church of St Thomas, now converted to offices and a museum. Built around 1702–03, it was constructed as part of a rebuilding scheme for the old St Thomas's Hospital between 1680 and 1732. The building continued as a parish church until 1898, when it was reordered inside for use as chapter house for Southwark Cathedral, a role it retained from 1901 to 1980. Part of the building also served as an operating theatre for St Thomas's Hospital. Early craftsmen involved in its construction included Thomas Cartwright, mason, and Jonathan Maine, carver. The 1901–2 conversion was carried out by Arthur Bartlett.

Exterior and Materials

The building is constructed of brown-red brick with stone dressings and a slate roof, displaying a plain Queen Anne style. It has a rectangular plan with an advanced square-plan tower of four storeys to the south west.

The main elevation facing the street comprises one storey of four bays above a sunken basement. The four round-headed windows have stone architraves with cherub head keystones, and feature leaded lights incorporating stained-glass shields. The elevation is finished with rusticated stone quoins and a moulded stone cornice with pediment set against a brick parapet with stone capping.

The tower has rusticated quoins and doors in stone architraves on its east and south faces, each with segmental pediments and carved tympanum. At first-floor level, circular openings with moulded stone architraves appear on the south, east, and west faces, though the western opening is now blocked. Round-headed louvred windows in stone architraves with keystones are positioned at second-floor and third-floor levels on each face. Stone bands run at the second and third floors, and a moulded stone cornice is surmounted by a brick parapet with stone pedestals at the angles and in the middle of each face.

The north elevation has been altered and now displays four tall straight-headed sash windows with glazing bars and red rubbed brick dressings. These are divided by attached Ionic pilasters with swags supporting a modillion cornice. The lower level was formerly an open cloister space underneath the north gallery of the church.

Interior

The interior retains panelled galleries with oak mouldings on the north and west sides. There is an original oak reredos featuring fluted Corinthian pilasters beneath an open segmental pediment with the Royal Arms in panelled cresting, crowned above with supporters on either side. Side sections contain obelisks over triangular pediments. A finely moulded modillion cornice with interspersed paterae runs above egg-and-dart moulding. The staircase to the gallery has turned balusters. Wainscoting was renewed around 1900–01. A restored clock of 1757 by William Parr is also present.

In the attic, now accessed by the tower staircase, lies the old operating theatre of St Thomas's Hospital, which functioned from 1822 to 1862. This space was rediscovered in 1957 and has been furnished with a reproduction gallery and reproduction appurtenances of the surgeons' trade. It has recently been opened to the public as a museum, along with the former herb garret.

Setting and Significance

This building forms a group with Nos. 9–15 St Thomas Street. It and the adjoining No. 9 survive as rare examples of the hospital rebuilding scheme and together form one of the more important survivals of Queen Anne architecture in London. The north elevation is treated in the same manner as the adjoining No. 9, which was rebuilt for the hospital at the same time.