Anniversary celebrations for Smithfield Market
A two-day festival celebration has been announced to mark the 150th anniversary of Smithfield Market and the surrounding area.
Organised by the Museum of London through Culture Mile, the two-day festival will take place in Smithfield as well as the surrounding streets and lanes around Farringdon across the August bank holiday weekend (25th and 26th August).
‘Smithfield 150’ includes a line-up and programme covering entertainment, activities, food, drink and more across six festival zones and two stages.
Traders unloading meat and poultry at Smithfield Market in the 20th century.
Gregory Lawrence, chairman of the Smithfield Market Tenants’ Association (SMTA) which represents the Smithfield Market meat traders, said: “Working at Smithfield is a way of life. Many of us have never known anything else, having started here as sixteen-year-old apprentices.
“We work through the night to provide meat at affordable prices to London and the South East, as the market has done since long before the buildings were constructed.
“We are looking forward to celebrating 150 years of the Victorian Market with our friends and neighbours and the wider community and to showing people what the area has to offer.”
SMTA began life as the London Central Meat & Poultry Markets Association in 1869, the year after the Victorian market buildings were opened.
Other events to celebrate major milestones in the life of Smithfield Market have included a banquet in Grand Avenue for the 140th anniversary, based on the opening celebrations in 1868.
‘Smithfield 150’ is the second major Culture Mile event taking place in the City of London and is free for anyone to attend.
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