Smithfield is home to a number of City institutions, such as St Bartholomew's Hospital and livery halls, including those of the Butchers' and Haberdashers' Companies.

The Corporation of London's public enquiry in 2012[7] drew widespread support for an urban regeneration plan intent upon preserving Smithfield's historical identity.

[8] In the Middle Ages, it was a broad grassy area known as Smooth Field, located beyond London Wall stretching to the eastern bank of the River Fleet.

In 1123, the area near Aldersgate was granted by King Henry I for the foundation of St Bartholomew's Priory at the request of Prior Rahere, in thanks for his being nursed back to good health.

[12][13] In 1348, Walter de Manny rented 13 acres (0.05 km2) of land at Spital Croft, north of Long Lane, from the Master and Brethren of St Bartholomew's Hospital, for a graveyard and plague pit for victims of the Black Death.

On 29 May, the remaining twenty monks and eighteen lay brothers were forced to swear the oath of allegiance to King Henry VIII; the ten who refused were taken to Newgate Prison and left to starve.

With the advent of street lighting, mains water, and sewerage during the Victorian era, maintenance of such an ancient parish with so few parishioners became increasingly uneconomical after the Industrial Revolution.

That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object.On 17 November 1558, several Protestant heretics were saved by a royal herald's timely announcement that Queen Mary had died shortly before the wooden faggots were to be lit at the Smithfield Stake.

The Smithfield area emerged largely unscathed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, which was abated near the Fortune of War Tavern, at the junction of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane, where the statue of the Golden Boy of Pye Corner is located.

[38] Since the late 1990s, Smithfield and neighbouring Farringdon have developed a reputation for being a cultural hub for up-and-coming professionals, who enjoy its bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

Nightclubs such as Fabric and Turnmills pioneered the area's reputation for trendy night life, attracting professionals from nearby Holborn, Clerkenwell and the City on weekdays.

In 1174 the site was described by William Fitzstephen as: a smooth field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendezvous of fine horses to be traded, and in another quarter are placed vendibles of the peasant, swine with their deep flanks, and cows and oxen of immense bulk.

[43] By the middle of the 19th century, in the course of a single year 220,000 head of cattle and 1,500,000 sheep would be "violently forced into an area of five acres, in the very heart of London, through its narrowest and most crowded thoroughfares".

Road mileages were taken from Hicks Hall, a short distance up St John Street, some 90 metres north of the West Smithfield Bars.

In the Victorian period, pamphlets started circulating in favour of the removal of the livestock market and its relocation outside of the City, due to its extremely poor hygienic conditions[43] as well as the brutal treatment of the cattle.

[46] The conditions at the market in the first half of the 19th century were often described as a major threat to public health: Of all the horrid abominations with which London has been cursed, there is not one that can come up to that disgusting place, West Smithfield Market, for cruelty, filth, effluvia, pestilence, impiety, horrid language, danger, disgusting and shuddering sights, and every obnoxious item that can be imagined; and this abomination is suffered to continue year after year, from generation to generation, in the very heart of the most Christian and most polished city in the world.

[40][53] The Grade II listed main wings (known as East and West Market) are separated by the Grand Avenue, a wide roadway roofed by an elliptical arch with decorations in cast iron.

At the two ends of the arcade, four prominent statues represent London, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Dublin; they depict bronze dragons charged with the City's armorial bearings.

[55] The construction of extensive railway sidings, beneath Smithfield Park, facilitated the transfer of animal carcasses to its cold store, and directly up to the meat market via lifts.

[56] During the Second World War, a large underground cold store at Smithfield was the theatre of secret experiments led by Dr Max Perutz on pykrete, a mixture of ice and woodpulp, believed to be possibly tougher than steel.

Perutz's work,[58] inspired by Geoffrey Pyke and part of Project Habakkuk, was meant to test the viability of pykrete as a material to construct floating airstrips in the Atlantic to allow refuelling of cargo planes in support of Admiral the Earl Mountbatten's operations.

[59][60] The experiments were carried out by Perutz and his colleagues in a refrigerated meat locker in a Smithfield Market butcher's basement, behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses.

[64][65] A replacement building was designed by Sir Thomas Bennett in 1962–63,[66] with a reinforced concrete frame, and external cladding of dark blue brick.

The market operates to supply inner City butchers, shops and restaurants with quality fresh meat, and so its main trading hours are 4:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon each weekday.

[40] Instead of moving away, Smithfield Market continues to modernise its existing site: its imposing Victorian buildings have had access points added for the loading and unloading of lorries.

The buildings stand above a warren of tunnels: previously, live animals were brought to market by hoof (from the mid-19th century onwards they arrived by rail) and were slaughtered on site.

An impressive cobbled ramp spirals down around West Smithfield's public garden,[3] on the south side of the market, providing access to part of this area.

[82] Whilst the market continues to trade, its future remains unclear following government Planning Minister Ruth Kelly's instigating a major public inquiry in 2007.

In August 2008, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears announced that planning permission for the General Market's redevelopment had been refused, stating that the threatened buildings made "a significant contribution" to the character and appearance of Farringdon and the surrounding area.

[86] Marcus Binney of the campaign group Save Britain's Heritage said: "This proposal constitutes the worst mutilation of a Victorian landmark in the last 30 years.