in August 1305. The killing of ‘Braveheart’ Wallace, during which he was hanged, drawn and quartered, is now believed to have marked the opening of Bartholomew Fair – the largest medieval market in England
So we’re back for the rest of the Smithfield and Adjoining area Tour—and remember if you decided to do these tours you can skip parts, or split the days up into two days and of course my directions are basically giving you an idea—and can have been influenced by all manner of things—and you should get yours–the direction on your phone for instance.
So first return the way you came
Oh and I was suppose to be back on the 16th to continue this but I’ve started getting my tax materials together so that has set me back a few days.
Bartholomew’s Fair was held here from 1133 and started on St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24) and ran several days after. This was a National market for the sale of cloth. By 1305 it also included the sale of oxen…By 1400 The London corporation had the right to collect the market tolls, and finally in 1638 they were grated a formal charter. Cattle actual were brought here as far as the Isle of Skye and turkeys came from Norfolk and wore “little cloth shoes” on their feet.
Apparently the 18th century brought great developments to agriculture including to animal fattening techniques. In fact in 1795 the animal carcasses sold at Smithfield were said to have weighted twice what the same animal would have weighed in 1710.
As the years went by Smithfield’s livestock market created more and more of a hazard to the population that frequented the area, but it’s value prevented it’s moving to an area better suited to the hazards it posed. In 1852 there was the Smithfield Market Removal Act of 1852 which finally moved the trade in live animals to
It is said that the law was actually just ahead of the growth of the railways which would have made it much more feasible to move the live animals and transport the meat products that they would eventually become.
In 1724 Benjamin Franklin stayed on this street–but the building is no longer here—(to learn more about Franklin in London you can include a visit to the last remaining house that he lived in London at
Dolphin Bookshop, one of many that were in the area
The Spectator is a weekly British news magazine focusing on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828 (other sources say it was printed on Little Britain in 1711 in the Dolphin Bookshop, one of many such shops in the area But which ever date it still makes it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. The Spectator is politically conservative, and its principal subject areas are politics and culture.
continue on Little Britain to
Charles Dickens describes Little Britain , where in the novel Great Expectations the lawyer Mr Jaggers has his office, to be ‘a gloomy street.”
Christchurch, Greyfriars; St. Leonard, Foster Lane and St. Botolph, Aldergate, the latter of which the park stands alongside.
In the 2004 movie “Closer” Postman’s Park plays a key part in the story. The characters played by Jude Law and Natalie Portman walk through the park and Portman’s character, Alice, takes her false name from one of the plaques.
The Romans used this “smooth field” as a cemetery in the 3rd & 4th c. and it as later a site of public executions which included burning witches and those Protestants who died for their faith as well.
When Bartholomew’s Fair was suppressed in 1855 the Smithfield’s street pattern was redone with its center about the new central buildings of the market. The current streets are yet another changed based on European Union standards. refurbished to its present condition.
But take a minute to read this account which while in a book of fiction is written by a man who lived on these stark early streets when this was the reality
It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping, and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses. Charles Dickens Oliver Twist (1836)
Turn right on Aldersgate
Smithfield is the only major wholesale market that is still in the City of London and trucks that deliver here are said to barely be able to move through the narrow streets.
Cross over to the opposite side when you can and continue right/south
In the early C12th the church was known as St Agnes when it was granted to the Dean and Chapter of St Martin’s-le-Grand. In a will of 1275 it is referred to as St Anne de Aldredesgate; it was also known as St Ann-in-the-Willows and by 1460 both saints were referred to jointly.
By 1269 a churchyard is recorded here. but the church was damaged in a fire in 1548 and finally completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666
after which the parish of St Anne and St Agnes was amalgamated by an Act of Parliament of 1670 with that of St John Zachary which was not rebuilt, now the site of
The new church of St Anne and St Agnes was built between 1677-1687 but largely completed by 1681, designed by Wren, and it included 2 lower stages of the medieval tower.
It was damaged by bombing in World War II and restored in 1963-68 based on Wren’s original designs. It was re-hallowed on 23 April 1966.
Head southeast on Gresham St toward Noble St
Destination will be on the left
177 ft
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths acquired this site in 1339, and built the earliest Livery Hall recorded in the city. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Part of the Company’s property was demolished in WWII, and later became the site of a sunken garden.
(177 ft)
Churchyard of St John Zachary
25 Gresham St, London EC2V 7HN, United Kingdom
Head east on Gresham St toward Gutter Ln
292 ft
Wat Tyler, who led the Peasants’ Revolt, was stabbed to death here by the Lord Mayor of London in 1381.
