7 ms·

London’s historic Smithfield Market meets a new chapter

34 points by zeristor 4y ago

zeristor 4y ago
The article touches on the Elizabeth line, but this area is a prime location Farringdon station is on both the Elizabeth line and Thameslink. I’d sort of grimly expect that there’d be a rush to build tall office blocks all around the station, the sour taste of sweet progress. Also it is just awkward to get to Smithfield from Farringdon, the station exit is a fair walk around a block, I had thought they could have opened station access directly to Smithfield.
- grahamm 4y ago
  They (imho) ruined Spitalfields market when it was developed a decade or so ago. A similar large open space market that used to serve indoor independent food stalls; a market and indoor 5 a side football. Half of the market was lost to office buildings and most of the food became chain restaurants. The market does still exist but the overall elegance of the historic building has been desecrated.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bennyelv 4y ago
  I don't know, most Londoners quickly work out that for anything less than 3 stops on a tube line you could probably walk it in less time. You can walk to Smithfield from the Barbican, Chancery Lane, St Pauls, Blackfriars, Moorgate in less than 15 mins.
- will_asouka 4y ago
  There's a new entrance to the Elizabeth line right on the market https://goo.gl/maps/xJ5c4NFaPZeZTQTK9 https://goo.gl/maps/xJ5c4NFaPZeZTQTK9
  - jonatron 4y ago
    The different entrances to stations are missing from most maps, and they're important on the Elizabeth line. If anyone knows a map which has them, or knows how to add them to a map (like a layer on OSM/Google), let me know!
    - flipbrad 4y ago
      I see the one OP mentioned just fine on OpenStreetMap
- throwaway378037 4y ago
  Farringdon to Smithfield is about a 3-4 mins walk up Cowcross Street, pretty convenient
leg100 4y ago
God please don't. Turning everything into a playground to tickle infantile superficial tastes: conical shaped nonsense structures covered with primary colours, meaningless naff slogan in neon "Maybe it's because", renderings showing people milling about doing bugger all. They should have done everything possible to reverse the trend and keep it a meat market. Commerce keeps a place alive, people working and doing stuff. > ...channeling meat trucks through the congested heart of London does seem like a habit from another era. Why? Turning cities inside out isn't an era I'd want to live in. London should be braver rather than doing what every other city in the world is doing.
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  It's not meaningless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybe_It%27s_Because_I%27m_a_Londoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybe_It%27s_Because_I%27m_a_L...
- Symbiote 4y ago
  I don't know how many road vans were used, but deliveries were done by rail from the very start right through to the end of the meat market at Smithfield: https://www.nrmfriends.org.uk/post/getting-the-meat-to-smithfield https://www.nrmfriends.org.uk/post/getting-the-meat-to-smith...
  - leg100 4y ago
    Fascinating. This is a great book: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780711031449/Londons-Railways-Air-Aerofilms-0711031444/plp https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780711031449/Londons-Railways-Ai... It shows major railway stations from above. As the photos were taken long ago in the 50s and 60s they reveal how freight yards took up most of the real estate around stations. For example, Kings X had a yard extending for a large area behind it, which is now the redeveloped area, the "coal yard", etc. By this way, goods inc meat made their deep into the heart of cities. Presumably they then made their way to market via wagons, horse and cart or motorised. Unless the rail yard was in the market like in Smithfield!
bennyelv 4y ago
I know it's probably not worth fighting market forces, but this seems like a real shame. I lived right near the market on Turnmill Street when I had my first job in London, and used to walk to work in the city past the market in the mornings. The traders would usually be packing up by the time I went past, but it gave a real feeling of the diversity that the London economy has. It being so close to the one of the financial centres of the world really added to that feeling. The smell, the noise, the sights of men running around with large animal parts... it really was something special and interesting. Now it's going to be yet another set of offices, eateries... So dull compared to what it was.
- throwaway378037 4y ago
  I lived in Clerkenwell and the Barbican from teenage through mid 20s and I loved walking through the market. Sometimes if up early or pulling an all nighter to study I’d go walk there at 4am to see all the traders in action. This is truly a damn shame.
  - flipbrad 4y ago
    Happy but blurry memories of emerging from a night in Fabric, watching the market workers doing their thing.
    - bennyelv 4y ago
      Haha you and hundreds of thousands of others I expect - Turmills and Fabric closed down a long time ago now (late 00’s I think?)
      - will_asouka 4y ago
        Turnmills gone but Fabric still reppin
    - dcminter 4y ago
      I used to pop into SoS bar adjacent to Fabric on a Sunday morning for brunch. Somewhere I have a video of my cutlery being vibrated across the table by the bass from Fabric, so I guess they were still hard at play at 11am... Smithfields used to be where the discerning drinker went to get a very late (or very early) pint in the local pubs as they had special licenses to cater to the market workers coming off shift. By the time I lived in the city the late licensing rules had been relaxed though.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DrBazza 4y ago
Interesting to also see that Billingsgate has also moved from Canary Wharf as well, also opening up a large amount of lucrative land adjacent to yet another Elizabeth Line station. I had to search for 'what', and it seems 'houses', which given the location will likely be multi-storey apartment blocks starting around 4-500k I would have thought. For those non-UK readers, Smithfield is the meat market, Billingsgate is the fish market, both of which were in central London many decades ago. Billingsgate ('v2') has moved once already to Canary Wharf, the second part of London's financial district. The Elizabeth Line has been built, partly, to connect Canary Wharf, a privately owned estate in Tower Hamlets (a London borough), to the City of London (a London borough). The City of London owns the current Billingsgate site (v2, if you will), adjacent to Canary Wharf estate. There's been a bit of competition, friction, jockeying, whatever, between Canary Wharf and the City of London over the years, so this the City of London getting a toe-hold in the area. The Elizabeth Line looks like it's going to be a huge driver for future London development.
- martinald 4y ago
  Not just apartments. There's a lot of office space and most interestingly a 23 story life sciences tower, with it being entirely lab space (there is an enormous shortage of high quality lab space in the UK): https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kpf-submits-plans-for-23-storey-canary-wharf-life-sciences-building/5120915.article https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kpf-submits-plans-for-23-sto...
- zeristor 4y ago
  Spitalfields (Fruit and Vegetable) market had moved to Stratford, Billingsgate (Fish) had moved from near Monument to Canary Wharf. As I understand it Spitalfields, Billingsgate, and Smithfield (Meat) are all moving out to Barking to a purpose built market. https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wholesale-markets-relocation-to-bring-thousands-of-jobs-to-barking-and-dagenham/ https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wholesale-markets-relocatio...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
speedbird 4y ago
Courtesy of the market you could have a proper fry-up with a pint at an unfeasibly early hour.
adav 4y ago
Everywhere in central London seems to be becoming food halls and posh flats.
zeristor 4y ago
Smithfield some 170 years ago was a large open space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,_London Which for several hundred years had held the Bartholomew Fair, a seeming high point of the year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Fair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Fair My Grandfather's grandfather was born close by 10 years earlier, and it is strange to think he would have witnessed it, although by that point I imagine it had greatly faded from its glory.

34 points by zeristor 4y ago

The article touches on the Elizabeth line, but this area is a prime location Farringdon station is on both the Elizabeth line and Thameslink. I’d sort of grimly expect that there’d be a rush to build tall office blocks all around the station, the sour taste of sweet progress. Also it is just awkward to get to Smithfield from Farringdon, the station exit is a fair walk around a block, I had thought they could have opened station access directly to Smithfield.

grahamm 4y ago
They (imho) ruined Spitalfields market when it was developed a decade or so ago. A similar large open space market that used to serve indoor independent food stalls; a market and indoor 5 a side football. Half of the market was lost to office buildings and most of the food became chain restaurants. The market does still exist but the overall elegance of the historic building has been desecrated.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bennyelv 4y ago
I don't know, most Londoners quickly work out that for anything less than 3 stops on a tube line you could probably walk it in less time. You can walk to Smithfield from the Barbican, Chancery Lane, St Pauls, Blackfriars, Moorgate in less than 15 mins.
will_asouka 4y ago
There's a new entrance to the Elizabeth line right on the market https://goo.gl/maps/xJ5c4NFaPZeZTQTK9 https://goo.gl/maps/xJ5c4NFaPZeZTQTK9
- jonatron 4y ago
  The different entrances to stations are missing from most maps, and they're important on the Elizabeth line. If anyone knows a map which has them, or knows how to add them to a map (like a layer on OSM/Google), let me know!
  - flipbrad 4y ago
    I see the one OP mentioned just fine on OpenStreetMap
throwaway378037 4y ago
Farringdon to Smithfield is about a 3-4 mins walk up Cowcross Street, pretty convenient

leg100 4y ago

God please don't. Turning everything into a playground to tickle infantile superficial tastes: conical shaped nonsense structures covered with primary colours, meaningless naff slogan in neon "Maybe it's because", renderings showing people milling about doing bugger all. They should have done everything possible to reverse the trend and keep it a meat market. Commerce keeps a place alive, people working and doing stuff. > ...channeling meat trucks through the congested heart of London does seem like a habit from another era. Why? Turning cities inside out isn't an era I'd want to live in. London should be braver rather than doing what every other city in the world is doing.

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
It's not meaningless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybe_It%27s_Because_I%27m_a_Londoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybe_It%27s_Because_I%27m_a_L...
Symbiote 4y ago
I don't know how many road vans were used, but deliveries were done by rail from the very start right through to the end of the meat market at Smithfield: https://www.nrmfriends.org.uk/post/getting-the-meat-to-smithfield https://www.nrmfriends.org.uk/post/getting-the-meat-to-smith...
- leg100 4y ago
  Fascinating. This is a great book: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780711031449/Londons-Railways-Air-Aerofilms-0711031444/plp https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780711031449/Londons-Railways-Ai... It shows major railway stations from above. As the photos were taken long ago in the 50s and 60s they reveal how freight yards took up most of the real estate around stations. For example, Kings X had a yard extending for a large area behind it, which is now the redeveloped area, the "coal yard", etc. By this way, goods inc meat made their deep into the heart of cities. Presumably they then made their way to market via wagons, horse and cart or motorised. Unless the rail yard was in the market like in Smithfield!

bennyelv 4y ago

I know it's probably not worth fighting market forces, but this seems like a real shame. I lived right near the market on Turnmill Street when I had my first job in London, and used to walk to work in the city past the market in the mornings. The traders would usually be packing up by the time I went past, but it gave a real feeling of the diversity that the London economy has. It being so close to the one of the financial centres of the world really added to that feeling. The smell, the noise, the sights of men running around with large animal parts... it really was something special and interesting. Now it's going to be yet another set of offices, eateries... So dull compared to what it was.

throwaway378037 4y ago
I lived in Clerkenwell and the Barbican from teenage through mid 20s and I loved walking through the market. Sometimes if up early or pulling an all nighter to study I’d go walk there at 4am to see all the traders in action. This is truly a damn shame.
- flipbrad 4y ago
  Happy but blurry memories of emerging from a night in Fabric, watching the market workers doing their thing.
  - bennyelv 4y ago
    Haha you and hundreds of thousands of others I expect - Turmills and Fabric closed down a long time ago now (late 00’s I think?)
    - will_asouka 4y ago
      Turnmills gone but Fabric still reppin
  - dcminter 4y ago
    I used to pop into SoS bar adjacent to Fabric on a Sunday morning for brunch. Somewhere I have a video of my cutlery being vibrated across the table by the bass from Fabric, so I guess they were still hard at play at 11am... Smithfields used to be where the discerning drinker went to get a very late (or very early) pint in the local pubs as they had special licenses to cater to the market workers coming off shift. By the time I lived in the city the late licensing rules had been relaxed though.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DrBazza 4y ago

Interesting to also see that Billingsgate has also moved from Canary Wharf as well, also opening up a large amount of lucrative land adjacent to yet another Elizabeth Line station. I had to search for 'what', and it seems 'houses', which given the location will likely be multi-storey apartment blocks starting around 4-500k I would have thought. For those non-UK readers, Smithfield is the meat market, Billingsgate is the fish market, both of which were in central London many decades ago. Billingsgate ('v2') has moved once already to Canary Wharf, the second part of London's financial district. The Elizabeth Line has been built, partly, to connect Canary Wharf, a privately owned estate in Tower Hamlets (a London borough), to the City of London (a London borough). The City of London owns the current Billingsgate site (v2, if you will), adjacent to Canary Wharf estate. There's been a bit of competition, friction, jockeying, whatever, between Canary Wharf and the City of London over the years, so this the City of London getting a toe-hold in the area. The Elizabeth Line looks like it's going to be a huge driver for future London development.

martinald 4y ago
Not just apartments. There's a lot of office space and most interestingly a 23 story life sciences tower, with it being entirely lab space (there is an enormous shortage of high quality lab space in the UK): https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kpf-submits-plans-for-23-storey-canary-wharf-life-sciences-building/5120915.article https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kpf-submits-plans-for-23-sto...
zeristor 4y ago
Spitalfields (Fruit and Vegetable) market had moved to Stratford, Billingsgate (Fish) had moved from near Monument to Canary Wharf. As I understand it Spitalfields, Billingsgate, and Smithfield (Meat) are all moving out to Barking to a purpose built market. https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wholesale-markets-relocation-to-bring-thousands-of-jobs-to-barking-and-dagenham/ https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wholesale-markets-relocatio...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

speedbird 4y ago

Courtesy of the market you could have a proper fry-up with a pint at an unfeasibly early hour.

adav 4y ago

Everywhere in central London seems to be becoming food halls and posh flats.

zeristor 4y ago

Smithfield some 170 years ago was a large open space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,_London Which for several hundred years had held the Bartholomew Fair, a seeming high point of the year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Fair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Fair My Grandfather's grandfather was born close by 10 years earlier, and it is strange to think he would have witnessed it, although by that point I imagine it had greatly faded from its glory.