In 1985, excavations by the Department of Urban Archaeology in Kinghorn Street, adjacent to St Bartholomew the Great, resulted in the discovery of one of the most important pieces of medieval painting to have been found in the City of London (colour plate 1).

Discovered in two halves, the painted stone had been reused in a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century well construction immediately to the east of the church. The curved right edge of the stone probably derives from this secondary usage. When found, the two pieces were covered in lime mortar, to which, unfortunately, some of the paint layer transferred. The fragment is now in the Museum of London, where the two halves have been rejoined and other conservation work has been undertaken.