StoryGnat #14: The double-life of a magnificent building

Hello! It’s Saturday morning, and that means it’s story(gnat)time.

This week, instead of sending you off to any one place to find out more about this story, I’m piecing it together myself. That’s just because I couldn’t find any one sensible place to send you.

But I love the idea that buildings have seen all sorts of different things unfold within and around their walls over the years, and this one just caught my imagination. I can’t believe more people aren’t aware of it (but then most people might not be as nerdy about buildings as I can be…).

The double-life of a magnificent building

If you grew up anywhere near London (or have ever visited), there’s a good chance you’ve been to the Imperial War Museum. And even if you haven’t visited, you might recognise it from pictures, with its stately columns and imposingly domed roof.

If you’re into history, the museum is packed with interesting things – but those contents aren’t the reason we’re talking about it today.

Instead, I want to talk about the building itself. The bricks and mortar and stone and beams and stuff that makes a building a building. It’s had a fascinating ‘life’ in its own right.

Because the building that we now know as the Imperial War Museum started life as the Bethlem Royal Hospital - otherwise known (in earlier times) as Bedlam.

The Museum’s Story

The Imperial War Museum originally opened its doors to the public in 1920 – but those doors were not in the building it occupies today.

Over the years, it has had a few London homes, including the Crystal Palace and a site in South Kensington.

And after a couple of moves, it acquired its current home (which has since been thoroughly remodelled) in Southwark in 1936.

The Hospital’s Story

While today we’d call the Bethlem Royal Hospital a medical facility for people facing mental health challenges, it would have been known in the past as an asylum for ‘lunatics and the criminally insane’ (their language, not mine).

The building now known as the museum was originally built in the early 1800s to house the hospital, opening its doors to residents in 1815.

And like the museum, this wasn’t the hospital’s first home. In fact, it had been founded in 1247 as the Priory of the New Order of our Lady of Bethlehem and had changed its location and mission over the years, along with its name. It was known colloquially from the fourteenth century onwards as “Bethlem”, "Bedleheem", "Bedleem" or "Bedlam", but from the Jacobean era the term Bedlam became synonymous with a state of madness and chaos.

In the 1930s, the hospital relocated to Kent, two wings of the building were demolished and the central section of the former hospital became the museum we recognise today.

I find it fascinating that the building we know today as the Imperial War Museum had a ‘former life’ as such a different and iconic (in all the wrong ways) institution.

Is that just me? Or do you find that interesting too? I love hearing from you, so let me know?

Meg