Gordon Museum of Pathology

Part of King’s College London, the Gordon Museum of Pathology is the United Kingdom’s largest medical museum.

What to see at Gordon Museum of Pathology

The museum’s collection includes around 8,000 artefacts and pathological specimens, some dating as far back as the early 1600s.

Highlights of the museum include Joseph Lister’s antiseptic spray and Thomas Hodgkin’s stethoscope, the first to be used in England. The museum also features the original kidney, adrenal gland and lymph node specimens used by Richard Bright, Thomas Addison and Thomas Hodgkin to describe Bright’s disease, Addison’s disease and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Visiting Gordon Museum of Pathology

Gordon Museum of Pathology is located on KCL’s School of Medicine near Guy’s Hospital in Southwark, just a short walk south of London Bridge station and the Shard. It is around a five-minute walk to London Bridge tube station and Borough tube station is also a short walk away.

Unlike most museums in London, the Gordon Museum of Pathology is not open to the general public, although medical professionals are able to make an appointment to visit the museum by calling 020 7188 2677.

Other attractions that you can see in the area include The Old Operating Theatre Museum, Borough Market, the Golden Hinde, the Clink Prison Museum and the View from the Shard. There are several really nice pubs in the area that are well worth a visit including The George Inn, a 17th-century galleried coaching inn that is reputed to have been frequented by William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

If you found this museum interesting, or if you really wanted to visit but are not a medical professional, then you may want to visit the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, the Florence Nightingale Museum, the Royal London Hospital Museum, the Old Operating Theatre Museum and the Wellcome Collection, all in London, and the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds.