Henry VIII Gatehouse Statue

The lowdown

For all his fame, Henry VIII has remarkably few statues in London, and the only one on public display stands above the gateway to St Bartholomew's Hospital at Smithfield. He earned his place here by refounding the hospital in 1546 after dissolving the priory that had run it, so it survived where so many monastic institutions were swept away.

The stone king gazes out over the Smithfield traffic, easy to walk under without a glance. It is free to find, a small reminder that beneath the drama of his reign Henry left some institutions that, against the odds, are still serving Londoners nearly five hundred years on.