Few records of the Hospital of St Lawrence remain, and its founder and date of foundation are unknown.

[3][4] The Hospital of St Lawrence is known to have been situated around ½ mile west of the bridge over the River Weaver, well outside the medieval town of Nantwich and then within the adjacent parish of Acton.

[2] Partridge also states that a priory once existed close to the hospital; no other evidence for such a foundation now survives.

[3] By the late 14th century, leprosy was in decline in Cheshire; in around 1348, at the time of an outbreak of Black Death in the county, St Lawrence's became a hospital for the infirm poor.

[3] The first record of the hospital is shortly afterwards in 1354–5, which states: there ought to be one chaplain to sing divine service every day; and in which there ought to be three beds for the reception of poor sick people where they shall remain until they shall have recovered health; and that a certain service has been withheld for four years now elapsed; and it is now valued at 20 shillings per annum.

[1] Garton considers, however, that this claim is difficult to reconcile with the institution being described as a free Chapel, which would not have been under the jurisdiction of any parent church or abbey.

[5] The building, lands and possessions of the former hospital were purchased from the Crown on 7 September 1548 by William Warde of London and Richard Venables, sergeant at arms, together with the site of the former Chapel of St James of Newall, also in the parish of Acton, and other properties in Nantwich, for a total of just over £1111.

[1][5] The tithes were transferred by the younger Wright's daughters and heirs, Margaret Woodnoth and Elizabeth Davenport, to the minister of St Mary's Church in Nantwich on 1 May 1639.

[1][5] One of the buildings of the hospital is mentioned in a document of 1653: "a messuage called the Hospitall now divided into three dwellings in/near the Welsh Row in Wich Malbanke".