London Museum given £50m boost for new Smithfield home bringing total spend to £437m

The London Museum has been given a £50 million boost towards creating its new home in Smithfield markets.

The City of London Corporation and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan have both pledged £25 million towards the museum, which is one of the largest cultural projects in Europe.

A further £30 million will also be fundraised by the museum, bringing the total to be spent on the site to £437 million before it opens in 2026.

Smithfield Market was once one of the country’s most important meat and poultry markets and covers almost 10 acres in the heart of the City of London.

The museum believes that moving to the new site “will preserve the historic Smithfield Market buildings for generations to come” and it will host around two million people a year.

Smithfield Market will be completely transformed into the London Museum (Secchi Smith)

The decision was taken to move the Museum of London, rebranded as the London Museum, to Smithfield from its previous site on London Wall.

The Poultry Market in Smithfield, which is set to house the museum’s learning centre, temporary exhibition spaces and collection stores, will open in 2028.

The extra funding means the City of London Corporation has spent £222 million on the project while the Mayor of London has spent £95 million.

The museum has already fundraised £45 million from private donations, sponsors and philanthropy and it is aiming to raise £100 million in total.

It is also exploring green loan opportunities to raise the remaining £20 million towards its £437 million target.

A drawing of what the London Museum will look like (Secchi Smith)

Plans for West Poultry Avenue at the London Museum (Atelier 78)

Restoration works in the General Market at the Smithfield site have already been completed and work is underway to frame the spaces that will house the museum’s permanent galleries.

A three-metre-wide round, glass window was craned in to become the centrepiece of the General Market’s dome roof in 2023.

A four-year-long restoration of the Poultry Market’s copper roof was also successfully completed by hand by 83-year-old coppersmith Chris Johnson, who worked as an apprentice on the original 1960s build.

London Museum director Sharon Ament said: “Thousands of Londoners are helping to shape this fantastic new museum which will not only explore our city’s rich history but the people and places that make it such a vibrant place to be. 

She added: “We are steaming ahead to deliver a transformative, world-leading museum that will be worthy of this great global capital.”