The Charterhouse Museum

The Charterhouse Museum

The Charterhouse has been home to many significant moments in London’s history since 1371. It has been a monastery, grand mansion, boys school and an almshouse, which it remains to this day.

As part of the NLHF funded project ‘Revealing the Charterhouse’, the museum was curated in partnership with the Museum of London enabling the charity to share its vibrant heritage, history and collections with the wider public. The museum displays start in the present day and travel backwards through time to reveal a snapshot of the fascinating history of the site through a creatively curated selection of objects. There are 120 objects on display in our museum including 35 loans from Charterhouse School, Museum of London and Victoria and Albert Museum.

In the museum, you will be able to discover some of our unique objects, such as our skeleton of the Black Death victim and medieval water map, get to know the various Tudor owners of the Charterhouse, and you’ll be able to find out more about the lives of the residents in our community, known as the ‘Brothers’.

We are running two tours daily (Tuesdays – Saturdays), either with one of our professional guides, or a tour with more of an insider perspective led by one of the residents of the almshouse. Please see our Visit Us page for further information.

Our mission is to provide a home, a community and lifelong care for older people in need, while sharing our heritage and investing in it for future generations.

The Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery in London, located between Barbican and Smithfield Market, and to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the site has served as a private mansion, a boys’ school and an almshouse, which it remains to this day.

Residents of the almshouse are known as ‘Brothers’, which is a purely traditional term acknowledging the Charterhouse’s monastic past. The building is formally known as Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse, and is a registered charity (number 207773).

The public are invited to discover our dramatic story in our museum, which was curated in partnership with the Museum of London. Please see our Visit Us page for updates in our phased reopening to the public from summer 2021, and explore the opportunity to hire many stunning areas of the Charterhouse for filming and private functions. We also have a purpose built Learning Centre from which we run our Learning Programme for schools, families, universities and adult learners.