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Bedale Leech House

Heritage attraction
Bedale Leech House
Photo: Rosser1954, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Bedale Leech House is a rare small building made to keep medicinal leeches alive for an apothecary when bloodletting was common treatment.

Read the whole record

Bedale Leech House is a rare small building made to keep medicinal leeches alive for an apothecary when bloodletting was common treatment.

Why it was built

A local apothecary built the little brick house in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century to store live leeches securely.

People and work

Collectors gathered the animals, the apothecary kept and sold them, and doctors used them for bloodletting during its peak in the early 1800s.

How it changed

Its medical use ended as demand for leeches fell around 1900, and the neglected building was restored in 1985.

What survives

The round brick room, pointed doorway, small fireplace and water supply beside Bedale Beck survive in a garden.

Why it mattered

It matters because this unique working building makes a once-common but now unfamiliar part of everyday medicine easy to understand.

Sources for this account

Sources checked 16 August 2026.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w1218867892

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Photo credits
  • Paul Brooker, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • John Sutton, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • JThomas, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Chris Heaton, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Dave Pickersgill, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Roger Templeman, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Oliver Dixon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Martin Dawes, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Anthony Harrison, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Gordon Hatton, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
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