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Smithfield has been the beating heart of London’s meat industry for more than 800 years. Located at the middle point of Farringdon, Barbican and St Paul’s, the capital’s only remaining wholesale meat market has survived bombings and fire, public criticism and a waning butchery industry; it has been pulled down and rebuilt, and adapted to changing times. In continuous operation since medieval times, to call it an institution is an understatement. But this week it was announced that it will be forced to close its shutters for the final time.
The City of London Corporation was granted the right to run Smithfield meat market by Edward III in 1327. Over the years, opinions on it have differed: in 1726, Daniel Defoe called the meat market ‘without question, the greatest in the world’. By Victorian times, the market had its critics; in 1843, Thomas Maslen described Smithfield as ‘that disgusting place’ where one would find ‘cruelty, filth, effluvia, pestilence, impiety, horrid language, danger, disgusting and shuddering sights, and every obnoxious item that can be imagined’. There were calls for it to move to outside the City walls, with poor hygiene and animal welfare the main criticisms.
Smithfield as we know it was rebuilt during the Victorian period, equipping it for the more modern nature of trade. The Grade II-listed covered market buildings were designed by architect Horace Jones (who also designed Billingsgate fish market) and opened in 1868. The market today is its own microcosm, trading in the twilight hours to supply meat to butchers and restaurants, with its own slang and enforcement officers.
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