Medical London walk

Great Ormond Street, which runs eastward from Queen Square into Lamb’s Conduit Street, was built at the start of the 1700s. Some of the buildings were erected by Nicholas Barbon, the property developer who laid out Red Lion Square. Described in 1708 as ‘a street of fine new buildings’, the large redbrick houses soon became seen as ‘one of the finest situations about town.’ Indeed, one of the mansions had a remarkable state–of–the–art fire–fighting system – a roof garden with a goldfish pond which could be drained, and the water used to extinguish a fire.

The street has been home to organisations such as the Working Men’s College, the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, the Provident Surgical Appliance Society, the Home for Friendless Girls and the Homoeopathic Hospital. But it is best known for its Hospital for Sick Children – the UK’s first hospital dedicated to children – which was founded in 1852 in a house at number 49 with space for 10 beds.