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Tube: St Paul's or Farringdon. North of the Old Bailey lies St Bartholomew's Hospital , affectionately known to Londoners as Bart's. It's the oldest hospital in London, founded in 1123 by Rahere, court jester to Henry I, on the orders of Saint Bartholomew, who appeared to him in a vision while he was in malarial delirium on a pilgrimage to Rome. You can visit the hospital's church, and the nearby museum (Tues-Fri 10am-4pm; free), which has a short video on the history of Bart's. This also gives you a chance to glimpse the mid-eighteenth-century interior, which features murals by Hogarth. To see and learn more, you need to go on a guided tour (April-Nov Fri 2pm; GBP4), which also takes in Smithfield and the surrounding area. St Bartholomew-the-Great (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm, Sat 10.30am-1.30pm, Sun 8am-1pm & 2-8pm), hidden away to the north of the hospital, is London's oldest and most exquisite parish church. Begun in 1123, it was partly demolished in the Reformation, and afterwards fell into ruins. Restoration didn't begin until 1887, though by no means the whole church was rebuilt. To get an idea of the scale of the original, approach through the half-timbered Tudor gatehouse on Little Britain Street, which incorporates the thirteenth-century arch that once formed the entrance to the nave. One side of the medieval cloisters survives to the south, as does the chancel , where stout Norman pillars separate the main body of the church from the ambulatory. There are various pre-Fire monuments to admire, the most prominent being Rahere's tomb, which shelters under a fifteenth-century canopy north of the main altar.
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