St. Leonard's Hospital

Free to visit and sited between the York Explore Library and Museum Gardens. Dates from around the Norman Conquest era and in its day was the largest medieval hospital in the North of England, having 206 beds. You can access the undercroft with its arches and Roman and Medieval stonework. The hospital also fed the poor and the condemned, providing meals for those imprisoned in York Castle. The sick patients weren't allowed to be treated for their physical problems until they had first of all confessed all their sins. It was a religious institute and thus became one of the victims of Henry VIII's far reaching Dissolution Of the Monasteries, so York was without a hospital for the next 200 years. Over time, the buildings were variously used as a stable, a boatyard and an air raid shelter. A lot of history abounds and its good to see these remnants on view.

Great visit lots of information on the Info boards.

A very small partly ruined medieval ruin in York which was once a hospital. The name is probably now more familiar with the modern equivalent called St. Leonards Hospice. You can visit underneath the building to see the vaulted ceiling which is traditional of buildings of that era

One of several interesting Roman and medieval ruins to be found in the Museum Gardens, St Leonard's Hospital stands right next to the entrance gate. The monks and nuns of this medieval hospital provided care, shelter and food for the sick, aged and destitute of York for over four centuries, until Henry VIII had it closed down, along with the nearby St Mary's Abbey, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530's, forcing its unfortunate inmates out on to the streets. Interpretation panels in the hospital's entrance passage explain more about its history. I accessed the rest of the building from the forecourt of York Library, next to the gardens. You can freely enter the undercroft to view its vaulted ceiling and stout pillars, but the upstairs chapel is out of bounds. Behind the hospital, there's a pleasant grassy picnic area from where you can get back into the Museum Gardens through an opening in the ancient Roman Wall.

Free and right next to the library, there was a nice grassed area next to it which we took advantage of the sun and picnic tables to take a rest from walking all day. Other than the crypt area, which I imagine would have been once underground you could access any other parts of the ruins, though made a nice backdrop for our rest stop