Presided over by a giant, awe-inspiring, panoramic-viewing concrete monstrosity that soars into the London skies (codename: Guy's Tower), the Guy's Hospital site is a beauty to behold.

Over the last few years it has evolved from being the secret, if slightly run-down, den for a few hundred medics and dentists to become a state-of-the-art campus for all medics, dentists, physiotherapists and biomedical scientists - and it's all the better for it.

There are four key bits to Guy's:

the Hospital (all the stuff on your left when you leave London Bridge station);

New Hunt's House (big beige space-age glass house in the middle, with libraries and lecture theatres and such);

the old Victorian buildings, Hodgkin, Henriette Raphael, and Shepherds House accommodate the sinister Registry activity, the Gordon Museum, the old library, dissection rooms and the clinical skills centre;

and of course there's Boland House, which is where you rightfully belong.

Indeed, the wonders of Boland House are almost breathtaking. As you enter from the consultants' car park in the main quadrangle you can turn left into the only on-campus McDonalds in the country (a big whopper with cheese every day), but turning right gives you the opportunity, nay, honour, of swiping into the union building with the swanky new ID card that makes you look like your ugly cousin for maximum humiliation wherever you go.

On the ground floor is the area named The Spit (a.k.a. the Student Centre), which was a restaurant/canteen/eatery place until recently. In actual fact this was once a tuberculosis ward in the early days of Guy's Hospital- the hospital for the incurables.

The Spit has long since been mopped off the floor, you'd be glad to know, so what does The Spit refer to? It's now been totally redeveloped to provide you with a brand new shop and coffee lounge. The shockingly well-stocked shop, Guy's Supplies, sells chocolate, pens, white coats, stethoscopes, cards and an elegant range of themed merchandise for you to sport around town. It is in this esteemed establishment that MEDSOC and KCLSU event tickets will usually be on sale, as well as tickets for crazy nights in Inverse etc.

Upstairs is the old coffee lounge (Meeting Room 3), with walls so bright you've got to wear shades. Despite its name, no coffee, as such, is actually available here as it is now just a 'space' available for hire by the crazy likes of the dance society and karate kids!

The first floor is also home to the KCLSU offices on the Guy's Campus. Call in the Welfare Office next door for free condoms. There is also an NHS GUM (not chewing gum but Genito-urinary medicine) clinic on the second floor of Thomas Guy's house for free, confidential sexual health advice, screening, and contraception.

And finally, in the basement is the notorious Guy's Bar, the recently revamped centre of debauchery and decadent merriment. With a loud, funky jukebox featuring feeble sing-along pap from every era (ideal for drunken revelling), blue pool tables and tasteful furnishings. Guy's Bar is open from afternoon 'til night, to cater for your every alcoholic or snacking need.

The huge plasma screens provide coverage for every major sporting event for lovers of Football, Rugby, Cricket, Tennis, Olympic sports and so on. You can also catch your favourite soap operas on the big screen. Though Cat Slater was not the best face to see blown up!

The link between the old Victorian buildings and Boland House is the infamous Colonnade. The new sight for the traditional signing of the ceiling. An occasion where newly-qualified doctors attempt to defy Health and Safety regulations by climbing a ladder to sign their credentials on the ceiling (after a bottle of champagne)! Be patient, your turn will come�

In the Hospital, A Piece of Cake down at reception sells delicious muffins and sandwiches (at a high price) and the Great Maze Restaurant in the basement, sells good cheap grub. You'll know why it's called the Great Maze once you try to find it!

Students at the two hospitals stopped being taught together in 1836 after, much to the bewilderment of the patient, a fight between the two groups got out of hand in the middle of an operation (surgery was a lot more fun in those days).

The whole thing would have been glossed over if it weren't for the fact that the operation room clerk was so shocked by the incident that he suffered a heart attack and died. Someone obviously got very cross and told Guy's and Tommy's they weren't going to be allowed to sit together anymore if they were going to bicker and if they were going to behave like babies they'd jolly well be treated as such.

In 1829 King's College was set up as a rival to UCL (that Godless institution on Gower street), which the authorities didn't approve of ('UCL is boring' as the song so clearly states).

King's has always had an excellent academic reputation, especially in health-related sciences. Unlike Guy's and Tommy's, where the hospitals came first, and the education of medical students grew up later, at King's it was the other way around. King's College founded the Hospital in 1840, close to Lincoln�s Inn Fields.

In 1908, however, King's College Hospital became independent, and in 1913 moved to its present site in Denmark Hill. In 1983 the King's College School of Medicine rejoined King's College London. The Institute of Psychiatry joined King's in 1997.

The Institute of Psychiatry is composed of the Maudsley Hospital and the Bethlem, the oldest mental hospital in the world!