Google Street View Smithfield
Market
You can drag the map with your mouse, and double-click to zoom.
View Larger Map
Hours: Monday hours 2:00 am–8:00 am
Address: 201-232 Charterhouse St, London EC1M 6JN, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 20 7248 3151
Architect: Horace Jones
Smithfield Market
Smithfield is an area of the City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without, and where the present Haberdashers' Hall is located. It is situated in the north-west part of the City, and is mostly known for its centuries-old meat market, today the last surviving historical wholesale market in Central London. Smithfield has a bloody history of executions of heretics and political opponents, including major historical figures such as Scottish patriot William Wallace, Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasants' Revolt, and a long series of religious reformers and dissenters.
Today, the Smithfield area is dominated by the imposing, Grade II listed covered market designed by Victorian architect Sir Horace Jones in the second half of the 19th century. Some of the original market buildings were abandoned for decades and faced a threat of demolition, but they were saved as the result of a public inquiry and will be part of new urban development plans aimed at preserving the historical identity of this area.
History of Smithfield Market: In 1123, the land closest to Aldersgate was granted for the foundation of St Bartholomew's Priory by Rahere; as thanks for surviving an illness. The Priory enclosed the land between Aldersgate (to the east), Long Lane (in the north) and the modern Newgate Street (to the south). The main western gate opened on Smithfield; and there was a postern to Long Lane. The Priory was also granted the rights to a weekly fair; and this was established within the outer court along the line of the modern Cloth Fair; leading to a Fair Gate.[3] A further annual fair was added in 1133, the Bartholomew Fair, one of London's pre-eminent summer fairs, opening each year on 24 August. A trading event for cloth and other goods as well as a pleasure fair, the four-day event drew crowds from all classes of English society. The fair was suppressed in 1855 by the City authorities for encouraging debauchery and public disorder.[4][5]
In 1348, Walter de Manny rented 13-acre (0.05 km2) of land in Spital Croft, north of Long Lane, from the Master and Brethren of St. Bartholomew's Hospital for a graveyard and plague pit for victims of the Black Death. A chapel and hermitage were constructed, renamed New Church Haw; but in 1371, this land was granted for the foundation of the London Charterhouse, a Carthusian monastery.[6]
A little to the north of this demesne was established the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, an Order of the Knights Hospitallers. This was in existence by the mid 12th century, but not granted a Charter until 1194.[7] To the north of the Hospitallers was a Priory of Augustinian Canonesses; the Priory of St. Mary at Clerkenwell.[8]
By the end of the 14th century, the religious houses were regarded as interlopers — occupying what had previously been public open space near one of the City gates. On a number of occasions the Charterhouse was invaded and buildings destroyed. By 1405, a stout wall was built to protect the property and maintain the privacy of the order, particularly the church where women had come to worship.[6]
The religious houses were dissolved in the reformation, and their lands broken up. The priory church of St John's still exists, a little to the north of Old Street, and is now the chapel of the Order of St John. The St John's gate remains, forming the boundary between Smithfield and Clerkenwell. John Houghton, the prior of the London Charterhouse, went to Thomas Cromwell with priors from two other houses to obtain an oath of supremacy that would be acceptable to their communities. They were flung in the Tower of London; and on 4 May 1535, they were taken to Tyburn and hanged — becoming the first Catholic martyrs of the Reformation. On 29 May, the remaining twenty monks and eighteen lay brothers were required to take the oath; those ten refusing were taken to Newgate Prison and left to starve.[9] With the monks expelled, Charterhouse became a private house, before the foundation by Thomas Sutton in 1611 of a charitable foundation forming the school named Charterhouse and almshouses known as Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse on the site. Some of the buildings were damaged in The Blitz. The school moved to Godalming in 1872, and the site is now occupied by a part of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. Charterhouse was an extra-parochial area, becoming a civil parish in its own right that was incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury in 1899.
From its inception, the priory of St Bartholomew had treated the sick. The Reformation left it with neither income nor monastic occupants. After a petition by the City authorities, Henry VIII refounded it in December 1546, as the "House of the Poore in West Smithfield in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII's Foundation". Letters patent were presented to the City, granting property and income to the new foundation the following month. The King's own sergeant-surgeon Thomas Vicary was appointed first superintendent of the hospital[10] The King Henry VIII Gate, constructed in 1702, still forms the principal entrance to the hospital.
The principal church of the priory, St Bartholomew-the-Great, was shortened, losing the western third of the nave, and became the Anglican parish church of a parish that followed the former boundary of the priory and the thin strip between the church and Long Lane. This parish was a liberty, and until 1910 maintained its own gates, which were shut at night by watchmen. The provision of street lighting, mains water and sewerage were beyond the means of such a small parish; and in 1910 the parish was reincorporated into the City of London. The boundary of the parish extends about 10 feet into Smithfield — possibly marking the site of a former road.[3] The hospital formed its own separate parish, around the parish church of St Bartholomew-the-Less — unique amongst English hospitals. In 1948, the hospital became part of the National Health Service and adopted the name St Bartholomew's Hospital.[11]
The status of the former priory created the two parishes of St Bartholomew's. These had historically been associated with the parish of St Botolph Aldersgate — leading to disputes over the tithes and taxes due from lay residents, after the dissolution.[3] Smithfield and the market was part of the parish of St Sepulchre. It was founded in 1137, with a benefice granted by Rahere. This parish extended from Turnmill Street in the north to St Paul's Cathedral and Ludgate Hill in the south, along the banks of the Fleet (now the course of Farringdon Street). The church bell tower holds the twelve "bells of Old Bailey" from the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons. Traditionally, the Great Bell was rung to announce the execution of prisoners at Newgate.......Wikipedia >>
1. Bengali Wikipedia
2. Hindi Wikipedia.
