Leadenhall Market is one of London’s oldest food markets, standing on the site of a 1st century Roman basilica (a Roman public building). There has been a market on this site since the 14th century, and people travelled from all over the neighbouring counties with their produce. This was one of the markets that allowed people from outside London (known as ‘foreigners’ or ’strangers’!) to come and sell their produce. Farmers would drive herds of sheep down from Essex, would walk flocks of geese up from Kent or bring their cattle on foot from Middlesex. Animal skins, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables were all sold here.

Perhaps surprisingly, many of the market porters were women. John Murray in Blackwoods Magazine in 1841, writes:

It would scarcely be credited that, in splendid London, women are subjected to various kinds of severe and repulsive toil …. For example, the porterage of meat at the wholesale markets, as Newgate and Leadenhall, is performed by women, many of them old. You will see these wretched creatures stagger under the weight of a side of beef, or having an entire sheep upon their heads, conveying their burdens to the butchers carts, drawn up in the vicinity of the market …

The noise and smells are hard to imagine looking at the beautiful clean, bright Victorian buildings now in the 21st century. But if you look closely at the shop fronts, you will still see the wrought iron hooks where the produce used to be hung. If you can imagine these hung with animal hides and carcasses, with stalls protruding into the cobbled streets and blood swilling down out into Gracechurch Street, where the carts delivering more produce queued up, then you’ll start to get a picture of how Leadenhall Market once was.

In the 18th century, 34,000 geese were slaughtered and sold here each year. One of the many geese was a dedicated escape artist and managed to escape being sent for the pot. ‘Old Tom’s’ determination to live earned him the position of market mascot, and he lived here till he died at the grand old age of 38, when he was laid in state in the market and then buried here.

Fans of the Harry Potter films may recognise Leadenhall as the setting for Diagon Alley and The Leaky Cauldron where it recaptures much of its ‘olde worlde’ feel (though without the swilling blood!).

To view the Leadenhall Market virtual tour, please click here.

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Tags: city of london, city of london history, leadenhall, leadenhall market, leadenhall market photos, leadenhall market virtual tour, london history, London Markets, old tom

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under London Facts, London History & Information, London Markets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.