An 850 year old document describes a livestock market for swine, cows, oxen and woolly flocks at Smithfield.
Smithfield meat market, the direct inheritor of centuries of tradition on the site, is now set to close in the next few years.
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For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
The account of the livestock market is from a description of London written by William Fitzstephen in around 1174 as a prelude to his biography of Thomas Becket. The markets at Smithfield appear to have been well established by the time of Fitzstephen’s account in 1174 (850 years ago), so it is quite possible that they were first set up 900 or even 1,000 years ago.
Today, Smithfield is the UK's largest wholesale meat market, open Monday to Friday, midnight to 7am. Meat is delivered after dark by articulated lorries and unloaded by forklifts.
Fitzstephen was a cleric and a clerk in Becket’s household who had been present when the Archbishop was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Like Becket himself, Fitzstephen was also a Londoner and his brief narrative can be regarded as authentic and as the earliest written guide to London.
Fitzstephen’s description of London, originally in Latin, was reproduced (in English) more than 400 years later in the 1598 book The Survey of London by John Stow. This survey was a detailed record of Tudor London and its history up to that time (as it was then understood) and is still widely consulted today by historians and guides.
Fitzstephen and Stow are possibly the two most important early chroniclers of London, so it is fitting that the latter included the work of the former.
Fitzstephen’s word sketch of London is a vivid insight not only into the physical layout of the City, its buildings and surrounding fields, but also into the way of life and character of its people, their work and pastimes.
One of the features of 12th century London described by Fitzstephen that still has a direct link with the same area today, albeit with some evolution, is Smithfield market.
The clerk tells us in some detail that Smithfield held a weekly horse market:
“There is, without one of the gates, immediately in the suburb, a certain smooth field in name and in reality. There every Friday, unless it be one of the more solemn festivals, is a noted show of well-bred horses exposed for sale.”
The term ‘smooth field’ (an open field with no trees) was corrupted over time into Smithfield.
The horse market was popular with the upper echelons of London society:
“The earls, barons, and knights, who are at the time resident in the city, as well as most of the citizens, flock thither to look on or buy.”
The open field and the availability of horses made the location ideal for horse races:
“When a race is to be run…, the people raise a shout, and order the common horses to be withdrawn to another part of the field.”
Two or three boys, described as being expert at controlling horses with bridles and bits, would jockey for position and urge their horses on with spurs and shouts.
The horses were “eager for the race; their limbs tremble and, impatient of delay, they cannot stand still”.
Fitzstephen also describes a market for agricultural goods and animals sold for meat at Smithfield:
“In another quarter, apart from the rest, stand the goods of the peasants, implements of husbandry, swine with their long sides, cows with distended udders, oxen of bulk immense, and woolly flocks.”
Besides the sale of livestock, the market also included the slaughter and butchery of animals.
In addition, the large open field outside the City walls was an important location for many other kinds of public gatherings in medieval and Tudor times. These included jousting tournaments, summer festivals and public executions.
Among those executed at Smithfield were Scottish patriot and military leader, Sir William Wallace, defeated by Edward I and hanged, drawn and quartered here in 1305. Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants’ Revolt was beheaded at Smithfield in 1381.
A number of religious dissenters were burnt at the stake at Smithfield in the 16th century, when England’s monarchy lurched between Catholic and Protestant brands of Christianity.
When the livestock market was first established at Smithfield in the 12th century, or earlier, the location was open fields comfortably outside the City of London.
By the 19th century, however, London's built-up area had grown so that the market and its animal pens were surrounded by buildings. Drovers had to drive cows, sheep, pigs and other animals to Smithfield along busy London streets full of businesses, houses and traffic.
Conditions for animals at the market were inhumane and unsanitary, while the noise, mess and congestion were hugely problematic for the human population. In the mid 19th century, Smithfield was handling 220,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep annually.
In 1855, the City of London Corporation closed the livestock market and built its new Metropolitan Cattle Market to replace it in Copenhagen Fields, Islington (see my post: Islington Cattle Market: lost secret of Essex Road).
Smithfield re-opened in 1868 as an indoor meat market, but with no live animals. The buildings that still stand today were designed by the City’s architect Sir Horace Jones (who also designed Billingsgate Market, Leadenhall Market and Tower Bridge).
For most of human history before that time, the slaughter of animals had to take place close to where it was consumed, in order that the meat remained fresh. The new Smithfield meat market was enabled by the latest transport and refrigeration know-how. An underground railway brought slaughtered animals to the market, which had state of the art refrigeration technology.
Additional market buildings for poultry and other products were added to the west of the Central meat market from the 1870s to the 1890s. Many of these additional buildings have been empty for many years and are now being redeveloped as the new location for the London Museum (formerly the Museum of London).
The City of London’s Court of Common Council voted on 26 November 2024 not to go ahead with a previous plan to relocate Smithfield Market, together with Billingsgate Fish Market, to a new location in Dagenham, due to rising project costs.
The City Corporation will need an Act of Parliament to end its centuries-old obligation to host the markets, but this now seems a formality. Smithfield’s traders – mostly family-run businesses – have accepted a £150 million payment from the City Corporation not to fight the closure. The market will remain open until at least 2028, to give the traders time to find new premises. However, it is likely to be very challenging for them to find a single location for all of them.
After the previous decision was taken a few years ago, the Central market building at Smithfield had already been earmarked for closure and redevelopment for retail, leisure and entertainment purposes. That anyway would have ended what could be 1,000 years of history at the site.
The latest decision, not to relocate the market to Dagenham, will leave London without a central wholesale meat market for the first time in its known history.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
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