London's Markets: From Smithfield to Portobello Road

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Smithfield: London’s Meat Market

In the Middle Ages the expanse of grass beyond the city walls was known as the ‘Smooth Field’ and its use for grazing cattle and sheep made it a suitable location for the City’s livestock market, which existed a century before the Norman conquest. Some local street names like Cow Cross Street derive from this use while others, like Cock Lane, tell us that poultry was sold there. In 1123 some nearby land was granted to King Henry I’s jester, Rahere, for the site of the Priory and Hospital of St Bartholomew, London’s oldest, which benefited from the right to hold a weekly fair selling cloth: hence the nearby street name Cloth Fair. In 1133 the right was granted to hold an annual Bartholomew Fair beginning on St Bartholomew’s day, 24 August and continuing for four days. So celebrated, and eventually notorious, was this event that Ben Johnson wrote a play called Bartholomew Fair in 1613. The City authorities finally suppressed the fair more than seven centuries later, in 1855, because of the mounting crime, mayhem and debauchery that accompanied it. In 1174 the chronicler William Fitzstephen had recorded the ‘smooth field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendezvous of fine horses to be sold and in another quarter are placed vendibles of the peasant, swine with their deep flanks and cows and oxen of immense bulk’. By the time of John Stow in the late sixteenth century, Smithfield had become associated with the sale and racing of horses, ‘strong steeds, well limbed geldings whom the buyers do especially regard for pace and swiftness; the boys which ride these horses, sometimes two, sometimes three, do run races for wagers …’ The first recorded race meeting in England took place at Smithfield in 1174, in the reign of Henry II, and, a few years after Stow wrote his account, James I introduced horse racing to Newmarket, where it remains. In Henry IV Part II, Shakespeare has Falstaff say of Bardolph, ‘He’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield’. Stow went on to explain that, in addition to horses, ‘fat swine, milch kine (dairy cows) sheep and oxen’ were also being sold at Smithfield.

Martyrs, Fire, Gluttony and a Scottish Hero

In the meantime the Smooth Field had acquired a more sinister reputation as London’s principal site for the execution of criminals and dissidents. Protestant martyrs were burned at the stake, forgers were boiled alive and a plaque marks the spot where the Scottish hero William Wallace was executed in 1305. In 1381 the Peasants’ Revolt reached its bloody climax here when the Lord Mayor, William Walworth, stabbed its leader, Wat Tyler. In 1666 it marked the north-western boundary of the Great Fire that had consumed the City, the conflagration finally burning itself out at Pye Corner at the junction of Cock Lane and Giltspur Street, the event being still marked here by a small statue of the Golden Boy of Pye Corner. An inscription beneath the statue attributed the fire to ‘the sin of gluttony’, a reference to the meat pies and other produce consumed at the market.

Bulls in a China Shop

Amidst all this the livestock market continued to prosper. John Carpenter’s Liber Albus in his section on ‘Customs of Smithfield’ recorded that it cost one (old) penny to sell a cow or ox there and the same fee for twelve sheep. Moreover ‘foreign dealers’ (by which he meant merchants from beyond Middlesex) trading between St Martin’s day (11 November) and Christmas had to give their ‘third best beast’ to the market bailiff in return for trading there. Presumably this reflected the fact that ‘foreign’ merchants came from outside the capital to take advantage of the Christmas trade. Carpenter also recorded that freemen of the City had the right to show beasts for sale at Smithfield free of charge.

The Liber Albus

Also known as the ‘White Book’, the Liber Albus was compiled in 1419 by John Carpenter, clerk to the City of London, during the last mayoralty of Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423) and is a detailed record of the customs, regulations and privileges of the City, gathered from records going back to the years before the Norman Conquest, many of the records now lost. It is an invaluable source of information on London during the mediaeval period, with detailed accounts of its commerce, taxes and penalties for such misdemeanours as selling bad fish or loaves deficient in weight or quality.

Old Smithfield Market, 1824. (Wikimedia Commons, Jacques-Laurent Agasse)

As London grew, so did the market, which by the late eighteenth century was no longer an isolated pasture but increasingly surrounded by shops and dwellings. In 1710 a wooden fence was built to contain the livestock and prevent them from encroaching on nearby streets and other markets like Cloth Fair whose entrance, on market days, was protected by a chain. By the 1840s over two hundred thousand cattle and one and a half million sheep were annually, in the words of a contemporary Farmer’s Magazine, being, ‘violently forced into an area of five acres, in the very heart of London, through its narrowest and most crowded thoroughfares’. The Lord Mayor complained about the multitude of ‘loose, idle and disorderly persons’ that the market attracted and the situation was not helped by drovers who amused themselves by goading the terrified animals into a state of panic in the hope that they would run amok and destroy neighbouring properties, giving rise to the phrase ‘bull in a china shop’. There were also cases of ‘wife-selling’ of the kind that began Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.

‘Horrid abominations’

For Londoners in the mid-1800s the existence of the live cattle market had become a source of concern on the grounds of public health. One writer complained in 1843 that, ‘Of all the horrid abominations with which London has been cursed there is not one that can come up to that disgusting place West Smithfield in the very heart of the most Christian and polished City in the world’ while at the same time the poet Thomas Hood penned an Ode to the Advocates for the Removal of Smithfield Market. In Oliver Twist, published in 1838, Charles Dickens described Smithfield as ‘Ankle deep in filth and mire, a thick steam perpetually arising from the bodies of the cattle’ and surrounded by ‘unwashed, unshaven, squalid and dirty figures’. He continued to condemn the market, writing in 1851 that, ‘A beast market in the heart of Paris would be regarded an impossible nuisance … One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely understand your meaning if you told him of the existence of such a British bulwark’. In response to such complaints Parliament, in 1852, authorised the construction of a live cattle market at Copenhagen Fields, Islington, to the north of King’s Cross in an area which at that time (though not for much longer) was still rural. The new market was opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, clearing the way for the former market at Smithfield to be redeveloped.

The New Market: Floating Runways

Construction of the present Smithfield meat market on the site of the old livestock market took two years (1866–68) and was undertaken to the designs of the City architect (later Sir) Horace Jones (1819–87) who was also responsible for Billingsgate Market, Leadenhall Market and Tower Bridge. It cost almost a million pounds, a huge sum for the time, and consisted of two wings known as East Market and West Market separated by the Grand Avenue. These are all Grade II listed buildings today. The market had its own railway station in a tunnel beneath the market that could be reached from King’s Cross and Blackfriars stations. The station no longer operates but the former railway sidings have become a car park and the tunnel is used by Thameslink services whose passengers are quite unaware of their proximity to the famous market. A lavish opening ceremony on 24 November 1868 was performed by the Lord Mayor, accompanied by the band of the Grenadier Guards and followed by a banquet. The market was later extended to accommodate poultry and fish and installed one of the capital’s first cold stores, following the arrival of refrigerated meat from Australia and New Zealand. The first consignment arrived on 2 February 1880. The market now covers 10 acres: about twice the area of the former livestock market. In the Second World War the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Max Perutz used one of Smithfield’s cold stores in an attempt to allow the refuelling of aeroplanes protecting the shipping lanes against U-boats. He experimented with the development of a material suitable for building floating runways to be positioned in the mid-Atlantic but in vain. The RAF decided that they preferred long-distance planes!

Grand Avenue, Smithfield, by Sir Horace Jones. (Oxyman)

The End of Rationing

Unlike the other wholesale markets such as Covent Garden, which have moved from the City centre to more accessible and spacious premises further away, Smithfield has developed and prospered on the site that has been London’s source of meat for 1,000 years. On 4 July 1954, Smithfield was the scene of a celebration that marked the end of the rationing that began in 1940, early in the Second World War. On that day, meat, the last item to be rationed, became freely available for the first time in fourteen years. Smithfield opened at midnight to mark the event and ration books were ceremonially burned. The buildings were substantially refurbished by the City Corporation in 1992 and parts of the site have been, and remain, objects of controversy as proposals to demolish and redevelop some buildings are regularly put forward and usually refused after lengthy enquiries. Watch this space.

‘Antique working practices’

The market is busy from 9 p.m. unloading the vehicles that bring the fresh meat for the following day’s trading. ‘Shunters’ move lorries into bays for unloading where ‘pullers-back’, working within the vehicles, move the meat from the front to the back of the vehicle from which ‘pitchers’ unload it and take it to the stalls. There it is dismembered by ‘cutters’, weighed by ‘scalesmen’ and sometimes moved from stall to stall by ‘humpers’ or on the trolleys of ‘bummarees’. ‘Deliverymen’ take the meat to the customers’ vehicles while ‘offal boys’, young apprentices, look on to learn their trades as their fathers and uncles work. In 1969 a report on the operations of the market described it as, ‘a picture of antique working practices’ and the epitome of the ‘pre-entry closed shop’ whereby all vacancies were filled at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays by the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Any stallholder who employed his own labour would be boycotted by ‘pitchers’ and receive no meat at his stall! When questioned by a researcher about the reasons for these practices a union official replied, with disarming honesty, ‘Self-interest, the same as barristers and solicitors’! Because of its long and unsocial hours the Smithfield area is particularly well supplied with pubs and restaurants which serve excellent food and drink at all times to the market’s workers who are noted connoisseurs of good fare.

Smithfield Market, 2010. (Jorge Royan)

When Can I Visit?

Trading at Smithfield begins at 3 a.m. and ends at noon, Monday to Friday, though many stalls cease to trade at 7 a.m. by which time the retailers, catering contractors, hoteliers and restaurateurs have made their purchases and departed. Anyone, including visitors, can buy produce from the stalls and in the week before Christmas many private individuals travel to Smithfield to purchase their poultry, game and hams as their mediaeval ancestors did. It is also possible to walk around the markets after midday when they are very quiet. For those who wish to learn more about how the market operates City of London blue badge guides conduct walking tours of the market beginning at 7 a.m. and lasting an hour and a half. The guide will tell you of the activities of the assortment of oddly-named and carefully demarcated trades which handle 150,000 tons of meat each year, the jobs often being passed from father to son. Booking for the tours is essential and may be made at info@cityoflondontouristguides.com. The tour takes ninety minutes and costs £8 (£6 concessions). The market is the starting point for a cycle race called the Smithfield Nocturne featuring professional as well as amateur cyclists racing around London at night. The event has its own website which gives details: www.londonnocturne.com.

Places of Interest Nearby

The nearby church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, founded in 1123, survived the Great Fire and contains the ornate tomb of the founder of the hospital and priory, Rahere. It once contained a printing works that employed Benjamin Franklin. The almost equally ancient church of St Bartholomew-the-Less is nearby, and is of an unusual octagonal shape, its parish consisting simply of the hospital. Reference has previously been made to the monument to William Wallace, which was set into the wall of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1956. Number 43, Cloth Fair is the former home of the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman whose residence there is marked by a blue plaque. The building now belongs to the Landmark Trust and it is possible to stay there.

The former home of poet Sir John Betjeman at No. 43 Cloth Fair, adjacent to Smithfield, is marked by a blue plaque. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

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From Copenhagen to Bermondsey: New Caledonian Market and ‘hot gear’

Smithfield livestock market closed, to the relief of its neighbours, on 11 June 1855 and the new Metropolitan Cattle Market was opened by Prince Albert two days later in Copenhagen Fields, north of King’s Cross Station and close to the station’s goods yards to which live sheep and cattle were brought. A slaughter house was also built on the site. The new market was built by the City Corporation on the former site of Copenhagen House, a property constructed in the early years of the seventeenth century to accommodate the entourage of the Danish king when he was visiting his brother-in-law King James I. The Corporation bought the 74-acre site in 1852 and spent three years clearing it and building pens to hold the livestock that was to be driven there from the goods yard. The pens, which could hold 40,000 animals, were surrounded by iron railings surmounted by figures representing the animals traded there. Many of the railings remain though these figures have been removed. They did not always restrain the animals as planned and there were several cases of bulls escaping, as at Smithfield. On one occasion a bull was cornered, appropriately, in front of a sign advertising Bovril. Several pubs were built to accommodate market traders of which most, including The Butcher’s Arms may still be seen. A clock tower was built as the central feature of the market to a design by the City architect J.B. Bunning. It is still a prominent feature of the area, which is now mostly occupied by dwellings.

Cloth Fair Revived

By the time that the livestock market moved from Smithfield the former Cloth Fair had developed into a market selling much more than cloth. It had, in effect, become a market for general merchandise whose stallholders, denied the large numbers of visitors associated with the former livestock market, sought another home. The costermongers (‘barrow boys’) who had lost their Smithfield audience, along with refugees from the recently (1855) proscribed Bartholomew Fair, approached the City Corporation to ask that on Fridays, when the new Metropolitan Cattle Market did not trade, they could be admitted to the new market ‘according to ancient custom, among the empty cattle pens’. The Corporation, no doubt attracted by the prospect of renting out empty space on an extra day a week, agreed to the request and within a few weeks the Caledonian Market was born, taking its name from the nearby Caledonian Road.

Newly opened Metropolitan Cattle Market, 1855.

Prince Monolulu and ‘dark beads’

Within a few months the Caledonian Market had become an established feature of London’s commercial life. The gates would open at 10 a.m. on Fridays to admit ‘runners’, young men noted for their speed and athleticism, who would be despatched by stallholders to occupy the most favourable pitches and register their claim with the Clerk of the Market who was responsible for collecting rents. Amongst the more exotic attractions were Prince Monolulu, a huge Ethiopian who offered to sell racing tips with the cry ‘I gotta horse, I gotta horse’ and the banana king who, besides bananas, sold ‘peaches like a maiden’s cheek’. Honey Jelly Pills, ‘To purify the blood’, were amongst many quack remedies on sale. However, genuine bargains were also to be had. On 19 January 1932 the Morning Post carried an account of a young woman who had bought a