Statement from the City of London Corporation which is closing them down:

> Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, said the > decision represented a "positive new chapter" for the markets as it "empowers > traders to build a sustainable future in premises that align with their > long-term business goals".

This is a great statement. Like firing people to free them up to find jobs that better align with their desire for employment.

This is why I'm distrustful towards any initiatives aiming to make a city "more liveable for humans".

First they entice you with a vision of a place where everything is within walking distance, then they do this.

Need a City quant PhD to invent a mathematical analog of Black-Scholes [1] for pricing and trading the irreplaceable value of culturally significant physical spaces to future generations. Then City-like [2] institutions can compete financially for ongoing preservation rights, rather than a one-time chop shop auction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%E2%80%93Scholes_model

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

> The decision to close the markets and offer traders compensation was made by the Corporation's Court of Common Council.

> The Corporation will now have to file a Private Bill in Parliament as it seeks to absolve itself of the legal responsibility of running the markets.

The Corporation in this case is the Corporation of the City of London, which is the local government authority for the City of London, which is only the part of London that is within the walls of Roman Londinium. The Parliamentary Bill may very well not pass, in which case the Corporation may be in something of a pickle.

Super sad, have spent a long of time in the area from riding right through the middle of it and parking my motorbike under it, to wolfing Turkish lunches and drinking in the pubs (not on the same day, drink-driving mavens). It is a bit of anomaly in the modern London, hard to get to and surrounded by roads that aren’t really fit for purpose anymore, but it’s these incongruous spots that make things interesting. I remember the butcher on the main Farringdon Road just near the Charterhouse St junction, who was somewhat of a character, scoffing at my suggestion that he would even consider buying meat from Smithfield - literally around the corner - which confused and amused me at the same time.

I note the haughty remarks of other commenters who are neither familiar with the area or the ability to read, and suggest they pay a virtual visit to the spots in question

It's interesting to see how cities are handling the increasing bifurcation of wholesale and retail markets.

In Sydney, the current Fish Market is a grotty assemblage of small warehouses in what's now a prime waterfront location of the city that has become an unlikely tourist attraction, but still serves the wholesale market. They're building a new one right next to it that looks far nicer, leaves tourists much less at risk of getting impaled by a speeding forklift, and will keep the wholesalers around for at least some time since they've been promised fixed rents for the next X years: https://newsydneyfishmarket.insw.com/insw/new-sydney-fish-ma...

All other markets, though, have been shipped off to a massive complex in the industrial suburbs, designed for wholesalers with easy truck access, and with the arguable exception of Paddy's Markets (which mostly sells junk to tourists) there's not a single proper consumer retail market in the entire city. Meanwhile, over in Melbourne, there's a whole slew of them (Queen Vic, Prahran, Footscray etc) that all appear to be thriving.

What a shame. On a few occasions my wife and I woke up at ridiculous o'clock and made our way down to Billingsgate market on the underground. We'd come back with fish and a big salmon in a black bin-bag, which I'd do a progressively less horrific job of filleting each time.

Our reward would be a bacon/sausage and egg butty and a stiff cup of builder's tea.

Good times

This makes me deeply sad. I use to live near to the market on St Johns Street, which is a direct route to the Smithfield. There was once a burst water main that serviced a nearby hospital that caused St Johns Street to be closed down as the flood uncovered bones which needed to be excavated and investigated. They eventually were identified as cattle bones which were a few hundred years old, from when the road was nothing but dirt and would have hundreds of animals pass along it on the way to the market for sale and slaughter.

It's also a beautiful and historic building and site.

I'm not sure what led to the decision to close it, but I can only assume it was for commercial interests of some form, and will eventually be turned into souless apartments, and the surrounding businesses, bars, pubs and nightclubs will also fall into decline.

What the betting that they will turn in to a hive of chi-chi coffe shops, gift shops and bespoke offices, like they did to Coventry Garden and borough market. Since the early 80s London has been on a death dive, with real life London being replaced by a plastic equivalent.

> Work has already begun on turning this site into a new cultural and commercial hub, which includes the new London Museum.

Yes, come to the museum to learn about all this culture we used to have, such as an awesome market.

> The original market first traded in Lower Thames Street in the City in 1327, before moving to its current site in Poplar, east London, in 1982.

So the "850 year old" food market is actually a 42 year old market, and will likely continue to operate from a different location as it has done many times in the past.

The same thing happened to Covent Garden in the 1970s - the original site was closed, a new one was opened that over time became very evidently much better suited to being a large scale wholesale fruit and vegetable market.

Everybody and their uncle bitched and moaned about it, but I think there are few people today who would argue that London would be better off if Covent Garden was still the central produce market rather than the touristic hellhole it is today.

When money is all that matters, it makes sense (to first order) to push out everything that seems to lose money and is purely cultural.

This is the machine winning.

To second order(s) and above, erasing culture reduces the desire of folks to live and prosper in the first place.

Farringdon station happens to be where the Thameslink line from North to South London, intersects with the East to West Elizabeth line.

As the Elizabeth Line was being finished I realised that the whole area around there is going to change hugely.

Mind you if that’s the case the station would need to be rebuilt.

The article discusses converting the market to a social space to make the most of the new Museum of London.

Am I missing something, I would have thought the new Museum of London would open as the Old one closed, not a year or so later.

And how on Earth is a new market in Dagenham spec’d as costing a large fraction of a billion quid?

The whole area is full of so many personal memories; having lived, worked, and partied in & around Smithfield Market.

I live in Portugal now, but those times are so vivid. Whenever I was at the office very early, or out parting late enough, the sight of the market workers there was sobering and down to earth.

To think of it not being there, then being replaced with something nondescript, is shameful.

In and around is Farringdon Station, one of the original Tube stations, the bars & pubs (Ye Olde Mitre, The Hope, Fox & Anchor, Smiths of Smithfield, etc.) and clubs (including Fabric).

I was working in the offices above the markets, for a nascent IT company, and believe me they weren't luxurious offices but it was exciting.

Good times, and soon only memories.

Slightly amusing how a lot of stuff like this thats happening to uk is things they have done to others in the past

> "empowers traders to build a sustainable future in premises that align with their long-term business goals"

After referencing my corporatese translation book, I believe this means "Traders can get fucked we have money to make."

If you're in Boston, the open-air Haymarket operates downtown on Fridays and Saturdays, and more-or-less has been doing so continuously for 200+ years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_(Boston) Even if you're not near downtown, the prices make it worth the trip (bring cash and bags).

Another fascinating, vibrant part of a city's history destroyed and replaced with generic glossy bullshit.

We spent our first year as a startup hacking on laptops in the attic of Smithfields, along with a dozen other startups. No idea if Innovation Warehouse is still up there[1]. If you arrived at work early enough they'd still be hosing the blood off the tarmac from the early morning market.

Most startups moved out to WeWork as soon as they could turn a profit. But hey, it was cheap office space in super-central London.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/innovationwarehouselondon/

Still time to prevent this. Fingers crossed.

Smithfield features quite heavily in “Great Expectations”. Dickens hated the place. He subscribed to a theory that a city needed good circulation, which meant that things that obstructed traffic were considered bad, and Smithfield was hugely stationary and snarked up everything around it.

Of course, he had no concept of the circulation of money as being interesting and important to the “health” of a city, but most economists since Marx do.

Real estate developer looking to build build flats for Chinese and Russian investors. Gotta love the grift

Guess I better get cross out my "buy fresh meat from Smithfield at 6am" item from my bucket list soon...

An old tradition is to be replaced with the current hot trend: selling condos as investment assets. But land speculation and development predates everything in london.

> "It means there’s no fish market for London, which would mean the populace of London would have to resort to using local fishmongers"

I mean, or Tesco?