Royal College of Physicians, St Andrews Place, London
The Royal College of Physicians of London is a British professional body of doctors of general medicine and its subspecialties. It was originally founded as the College of Physicians. It received a royal charter in 1518 from King Henry VIII, affirmed by Act of Parliament in 1523. It is a member of the UK Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. It was the first medical institution in England to become a Royal College, and the first Royal College in the UK and Ireland for physicians; its charter followed that of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh which received its royal charter in 1506. The college has been continuously active in improving practice medicine since then, primarily though training and qualifying new physicians. The current President of the college is Sir Richard Thompson. The College is now located in St. Andrews Place, which is at the north end of the road running up the east side of Regent's Park, Park Square East. The College building itself is notable. It was designed by architect Sir Denys Lasdun in 1964 and has since been recognised as a building of national importance: it is a Grade I listed building, one of a very select band of post-war buildings sharing this distinction. Lasdun's use of mosaic clad concrete was extremely influential on many later public buildings. An interesting feature of the building was a 'Moving Wall', weighing five tons (5080 kg) and capable of being hydraulically lifted ten feet (3050 mm) to unite or sub-divide a hall of sixty-two feet ( m) width, which was the interior width of the building. The hydraulic equipment and the steel framework for the Moving Wall were produced by Merryweather & Sons Ltd of Greenwich, hydraulic engineers. Although better known for fire fighting equipment it was not the company's first installation of this kind. Technical details of the Moving Wall can be found in Engineering journal, 1 Jan 1965.
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Location: Royal College of Physicians, St Andrews Place, London
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: andrews, college, doctors, london, medical, park, physicians, place, regents, royal, st, sundial
