The General Market opened in 1883, but the domed ceiling had to be rebuilt due to bomb damage caused in World War II.
Smithfield’s grand General Market was bustling with merchants selling their wares from their stalls for more than a century, until it closed and fell into decay in the 1990s. Efforts are currently underway to bring the building back into use, offering a unique snapshot of London life over the decades, from the Victorian coffee shop to the hidden vaults. Masu.
“It had basically been sitting there for 30 years and was deteriorating,” Alec Shaw explains over the cacophony of drilling and hammering. “Water came in and a number of developers tried and failed to develop it, and it was then given to the Museum of London.”
Until it opened in the early 1880s, the general market, with its ornate domed ceiling and iron columns, was intended for selling fruit and vegetables, and the walls were decorated with decorative pineapples and other items. .
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Smithfield Market consists of a number of buildings designed by Sir Horace Jones, the first of which was completed in 1868.
“But basically meat was very popular, and with fruit and vegetables being sold in Covent Garden, this actually became a meat market…and meat remained very popular until the 1970s. “But then meat started to go down and we were importing more meat,” Shaw said.
Even though work is well underway, hints of the past remain. There is a fireplace halfway up the wall, and there are also remains of a staircase that would have led up to the fireplace. When construction workers moved in, dusty calendars and Page Three pinups from the 1990s were found still hanging on the walls.
“Many traders [would have been] Each would have their own office here. And you can see on which wall their office was. We want to leave that mark on the market and the layers of history,” Shaw says.
Traces of the building’s past remain throughout the site
Descending what was later known as the Grand Staircase reveals a vast chasm that stretches into the distance beneath a high vaulted ceiling. This will be home to the museum’s permanent collection.
First built as a huge cold storage warehouse, then used as a salt store and parking lot, it is now filled with construction noise and knocking, mixed with the occasional sound of cymbals falling from the ceiling and splashing water. I am. .
“Stopping the water flow is one of our big challenges,” says the museum project director. “That means it will take at least a year or two to get all the roofs repaired and the building dry, so we’re very close to that.”
The site was previously used as a cold storage warehouse, space to store the city’s salt, and a parking lot.
Although much of the roof has been rebuilt, much of the Victorian structure has caved in over time.
As you move further into the space, the murmur quickly turns into a roar, and new sounds join the symphony. Pull back the large gray sheet to reveal the railway tracks and sidings behind the broken wire mesh, where the Thameslink service runs between City Thameslink and Farringdon 24 hours a day.
When the market was first built, architect Sir Horace Jones built it around the railway line so that produce could be brought directly into the store. When the museum opens in 2026, the very people who ride the popular commuter line across the capital will become objects in the museum behind giant glass windows.
“When we see the trains go by, we talk about London’s infrastructure, physical London, and how it all works together and how complex it is,” Shaw explains.
Those traveling on Thameslink’s services can see inside the museum as they pass through the gallery spaces.
These vast grounds have yielded new discoveries, which are now incorporated into the museum. Workers found a large amount of planks on one wall of the basement. After years of construction, they finally decided to reveal what’s behind it.
“It was full of rats and there were no lights on. You were literally walking on the earth. And then we slowly started to reveal more and more and light everything up. So, it was That’s exactly what I found.”
Extending out front is a vast network of Victorian brick-lined vaults measuring over 800 square meters (8,610 square feet). It took over a year to clean it up.
More than 12 months were spent cleaning the vault’s brickwork.
“Imagine if the brickwork was completely black. You couldn’t even see the bricks in the corners. It’s just incredible. And now we’re looking down at the landscape, and it’s like looking in a mirror. I can see it,’” he says.
Another discovery was from another part of London’s history. In the shadow of a storage building built in the 1970s, workers discovered the former Lockhart Cocoa Room. The Room is a chain similar to modern coffee shops, founded as part of the Victorian temperance movement to encourage people to drink less.
“This is just an amazing discovery. The tilework itself is really nice, so we’re basically going to reopen it as a cafe, but the name will be Cocoa Room Store.”
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Lockhart’s Cocoa Room, like this one in Holborn, was created in 1890 as part of an effort to reduce people’s drinking.
Alec Shaw stands in front of the museum’s cocoa store.
Some of the team’s latest forays into the market are the former chicken markets, which traders only left in August.
Since then, trade stalls and offices have been demolished, leaving vast spaces under the dramatically curved roof. This roof was the largest single-span ceiling in Europe when it was built in the 1960s.
This part of the museum is not expected to open until 2028, but once it does, it will host temporary exhibitions and a learning center and be used to store the rest of the museum’s collection.
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Traders left the chicken market in August, and construction workers moved in the following month.
This space is currently a shell, but is expected to eventually host temporary exhibitions, a learning center, and a collection store.
Such an important project does not come cheap, with a current budget of £437 million, funded by “the City of London, the Museum of London, the Greater London Authority and various private foundations. It comes from “partnerships with sponsors and organizations.” The museum said it was a “private charity.”
Mr Shaw believes this cost is very worthwhile as the work serves multiple purposes.
“First of all, we think this is about bringing back what we call the last ruins of London. This building that’s left here doesn’t have much use and we’re going to bring it back to life,” he said. says.
“The second part of the project is to actually create a museum fit for purpose in 21st century London.”
The first part of the new museum will be called the Museum of London and is expected to open in 2026
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