Eastbridge Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr

Eastbridge Hospital stands beside the River Stour in Canterbury, a short walk from the Westgate and next to the Franciscan Gardens. Founded soon after the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, it once gave shelter to pilgrims heading for the cathedral. The oldest parts date from about 1180 and include an entrance hall, undercroft, refectory and chapel. The Pilgrims’ Chapel still shows its twelfth-century roof beams and fourteenth-century enlargement. The undercroft’s round-headed arches mark the shift from Norman to Gothic style. The hospital survived the dissolution of the monasteries and later reforms by archbishops such as John de Stratford and Simon Sudbury. In 1569 Archbishop Matthew Parker set aside twelve beds for the wayfaring poor and started a school in the chapel for boys. The school lasted until 1880, and pupils’ names remain carved on a refectory pillar. More recent restorations have preserved the rooms above the river and returned the chapel to use. Visitors today see the twelfth-century entrance hall and chapel, the refectory with its thirteenth-century fresco of Christ in Majesty, and the undercroft once used as a dormitory. The gardens beside the Stour remain open to the public. The building is a Grade I listed site and still provides accommodation for elderly citizens and Ukrainian refugees in parts not open to visitors.