GENERAL PLAN OF BETHLEM HOSPITAL

Plan of Bethlem Hospital, Lambeth, with title at bottom right and scale bar at bottom centre. The plan shows Smirke's design for a new block at the rear of the building and the dome and portico to the central block. Founded outside Bishopsgate in 1247 by the Sheriff Simon Fitz Mary as the Priory of St Mary Bethlem, the institution was moved from Moorfields to Lambeth in 1800 after the hospital's surveyor, James Lewis, reported the original site unsafe. Designed to accommodate 200 patients with psychiatric instabilities, the new building was completed in 1815 with new buildings added from the 1830s.