St Bartholomew the Great is one of the oldest surviving churches in London, founded in 1123 by Rahere, a courtier to King Henry I who is said to have established the priory and nearby hospital following a vision of St Bartholomew during a pilgrimage to Rome.

Much of the medieval priory was lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, but the church itself survives with an extraordinary degree of its Norman fabric intact.

Originally part of a large Augustinian monastery in Smithfield, the church was at the centre of a busy medieval complex that combined worship, charity, and healing, closely linked to the adjacent St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which remains active today.

Its massive Romanesque arches, thick stone columns, and later medieval additions make it one of the most significant and atmospheric medieval interiors in London, offering a rare sense of the scale and presence of early English ecclesiastical architecture.