t midnight while Londoners sleep, work is just beginning for the traders at Smithfield market. As the trading day gets under way, punctuated by the crashing of pallets, the screeching of vans and the smell of raw meat, the complex is an island of hustle and bustle in an otherwise still city centre.
The site has been home to generations of traders dating back more than 800 years, although the buildings recognisable today are mainly from the Victorian era. But by 2028, Smithfield’s remaining 28 businesses will all have been relocated – along with Billingsgate fish market and, eventually, Spitalfields fruit and vegetable market – to a new purpose-built facility at Dagenham Dock in the capital’s eastern outskirts.
A trader’s desk, ‘Corn-fed chickens, four for £10’ and workers in the poultry market, which will relocate to Dagenham at the end of the month But for others, the history associated with the site is enough reason to want to stay put. The poultry building’s imminent closure serves as a sobering reminder to the rest of the market of the years of mothballing ahead.James Oatley, of BJ Meats, has been working at the market since he was a boy, more than 50 years ago. He now runs his specialist lamb business with his son.