The Savoy Palace, considered the grandest nobleman's townhouse of medieval London, was the residence of prince John of Gaunt until it was destroyed during rioting in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

In 1246 King Henry III granted the land between the Strand and the Thames, on which the palace was soon built, to an uncle of Queen Eleanor, Peter, Count of Savoy, whom he created Feudal Baron of the Honour of Richmond.

In the 14th century, when the Strand was paved as far as the Savoy, it was the vast riverside London residence of John of Gaunt, a younger son of King Edward III who had inherited by marriage the title and lands of the Dukes of Lancaster.

[3] The grand structure ('dedicated to the honour of the Blessed Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and St. John the Baptist')[3] was the most impressive hospital of its time in the country and the first to benefit from permanent medical staff.

It consisted of a large cruciform arrangement of dormitories, around which were placed the chapel, separate lodgings for the master and other officials, domestic ranges and a tower, which served among other things as a secure treasury and archive.

[3] Statutes published in 1523 stipulated a distinct role for each chaplain (namely seneschal, sacristan, confessor and hospitaller) and listed several other officials, including a matron, who was assisted by twelve other women.

Each evening, an hour before sunset, the hospitaller, vice-matrons and others opened the gates and admitted the poor, who went first to the chapel to pray for the founder, then to the dormitory where they were allotted a bed for the night; the matron's staff were also to see that the men were bathed and their clothing washed.

When Charles II came to the throne, he re-established the hospital under its former statutes; however, in 1670 some of the buildings were again taken over by the military (for the use of men wounded in the Dutch Wars),[3] and in 1679 the Great Dormitory and the Sisters' Lodgings were converted into barracks for the Foot Guards.

[4] A commission appointed by King William III reported that the hospital's main function, relief of the poor, was being utterly neglected; it made recommendations, but these were not enacted.

[3] In 1702, the office of master being vacant, Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, dismissed the remaining chaplains and formally declared the hospital foundation dissolved.

As early as 1775 Sir William Chambers (who was already responsible for rebuilding the adjacent riverside property, Somerset House, to serve as government offices) was asked to draw up plans to replace the Hospital buildings with an entirely new Barracks for the Foot Guards (to accommodate 3,000 men).