Hospital of St Lawrence, Acton
Hospital of St Lawrence, Acton
The Hospital of St Lawrence was a medieval charity west of Nantwich, Cheshire, near what is now Welsh Row in the parish of Acton. It began as a lazar house for lepers who were not allowed to enter the town, and later became a hospital for the infirm poor. It stood about half a mile west of the River Weaver bridge, outside the medieval town.
It was one of two medieval Nantwich hospitals; the other was St Nicholas. The exact location today is uncertain, but tradition places it near the Tollemache Almshouses.
The hospital’s history is partly unclear. The first records are from 1354–5, noting a chaplain and three beds for poor sick people. Leprosy declined in Cheshire by the late 14th century, and around 1348 the hospital became a hospital for the infirm poor. The hospital’s lands and the right to appoint the chaplain (the advowson) changed hands several times: the Lovell family owned it before 1485, and the Crown later held it. By 1525 the chapel was worth about £4 a year.
In 1548, during the Dissolution of the Chantries, the hospital was closed and its lands became Crown property. The last chaplain, Richard Wright, received a pension and died in 1585. The Wright family then bought the hospital’s buildings and lands in 1548 for just over £1,100, and Wright’s heirs later transferred the tithes to St Mary’s Church in Nantwich in 1639.
One building is later mentioned as a house divided into three dwellings on Welsh Row, near the old hospital site.
Evidence about the exact position of the hospital is limited, but many sources connect it to the area near the Tollemache Almshouses.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 13:58 (CET).