The closure of Smithfield Market is a symbol of Clerkenwell’s cultural shift, says local guide Nigel Smith.
Mr Smith, who has been leading ‘Cultural Clerkenwell’ walking tours since 2022, said: “[Smithfield Market] has been a meat market since the 1860s, but that’s ending … all those market traders are being essentially forced out.”
Since Mr Smith began his tours, he has witnessed the disappearance of the longstanding trading culture that lived in and around Smithfield market.
He said, along Long Lane: “You’ll see a sign for a 24-hour café, but there’s no 24-hour café there. Within the last six months it has become a fairly cliché, trendy-looking coffee shop…so that big working class nature of the area is dying.”
Mr Smith works to preserve the area’s historical identity.
He said there is a stark contrast between the area’s upmarket present and history of extreme poverty, as an area that “Charles Dickens chose as the setting for Oliver Twist, depicting it as a den of thieves, pickpockets and terribleness”.
Mr Smith said: “It’s very difficult to erase history and one of the great things about what I do is bring history alive and into the present.”
Last autumn, the City of London Corporation voted to withdraw support from the historic meat market and close the site.
It will be permanently closed from 2028. The area is intended to become an international cultural hub and the home of London Museum.
Mr Smith said: “Gentrification will actually preserve the past… the fact that the London Museum is establishing itself there means history will be more present, because people will come to the area and experience the history that surrounds the museum.”
Mr Smith’s tour covers Clerkenwell’s history of writers, musicians, journalism, food and includes rare access to the Clerks Well, a Medieval well only accessible to guides.
He hopes to launch a new tour that focuses on Clerkenwell’s industrial history.
