St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester

St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester was founded in 1078 for the care of the poor and lepers. It survived as a charity until taken over with the founding of the National Health Service. The hospital closed permanently on 23 September 2016.HistoryMedievalSt. Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester is the oldest existing hospital in England, predating its more famous namesake in London by fifty years. Six hospitals were founded before the Norman Conquest in 1066, but none of them are still functioning. Shortly before St. Bartholomew's was founded Archbishop Lanfranc (consecrated 1070) erected a hospital at Harbledown outside Canterbury, but it is no longer in existence.The original hospital was on the main road between Chatham and Rochester which is now known as Rochester High Street. Being for the relief of the poor and leprous, it was built outside the city itself in an area of Chatham which lay within the jurisdiction of Rochester called "Chatham Intra" ("Chatham Within"). The hospital was run by a "Custos" (Warden) or Prior with a number of canons.Finance was obtained from grants and from the revenues of lands settled upon the hospital, the normal pattern of support for institutions during the Middle Ages. Even with this income the hospital might well have failed but for donations from the Priory of St. Andrew. The priory contributed daily and weekly provisions to the hospital along with the offerings from at altar of St. James and at that of St. Giles, both within the cathedral. On the installation of a new bishop they had the right to collect alms fromn those present at his table, and even had the cloth covering the table. Henry III gave "forty shillings yearly arising from land within the Hundred of Andeltune".