Richard Barnett on The Foundling Hospital

To enter Coram's Fields, a leafy park with a petting zoo and playground, visitors must be accompanied by a child. This restriction reflects its history as the location of the Foundling Hospital, a revolutionary organisation founded in 1739 by Thomas Coram to provide a home for abandoned children. The main building was demolished in the 1920s, leaving only the colonnades either side of what would have been the main drive.

The history of the Hospital is told in the nearby Foundling Museum, which is located to the north of Coram's Fields on Brunswick Square, and contains works by Hogarth and Handel in amongst artefacts relating to life at the hospital.

This video is from Medical London, a book and website about 2000 years of health and sickness in the capital city, featuring seven self-guided walks. The Foundling Hospital is a point of interest on the seventh walk, 'Bloomsbury: blood, guts, brains and babies'.