Smithfield Market

Smithfield market was used by meat traders for more than 800 years. The trade of live animals was banned in 1852 due to sanitation concerns. Philpotts (2010) argues that prior to this, ‘The cacophony and confusion of Smithfield ... underscored its irredeemably public nature, and remind us that this was very much an unrestrained and pre-modern world.’ As with other public spaces, the market was a central node for social mingling. It was referenced in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist as a place where 'countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass.' 

Up until the mid 1980s, virtually all of London’s beef, lamb, pork and poultry requirements were directed through the market. It ranked as one of the largest centralised meat markets in the world. Last year, the City of London Corporation, which owns the site near, flagged it for closure. Developers claimed: ‘These plans are a key part of our wider ambition to create a vibrant and new world-class Culture Mile at the heart of the historic Square Mile.’ Source here.

This closure marks the symbolic decline of London’s trade in goods, and the ascendancy of the trade in finance.