The Bridewell Palace, beside the Fleet River, next to the Thames and just outside the city walls, was built for Thomas Wolsey, but he gave it to Henry VIII as a residence before it was finished. Henry enlarged it considerably, but then leased it to Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador (portrayed in Holbein’s portrait of that name).

In 1553, Edward VI gave it to the City of London as a prison for minor offences (the first ‘house of correction’) and ‘hospital’, that is a place for the care of pauper women and children from the City. The name became a generic term for a prison. A physician was appointed to care for the hospital inmates, making it sound more like the current meaning of hospital.

In Sudden Deaths I have given it a mortuary or morgue, though I don’t know if it had one in real life.