A 1960s market hall with the largest concrete dome in Europe
This point sits inside the Smithfield Poultry Market, a market hall in the City of London now closed and awaiting a new life as part of the London Museum.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 2800 BC–2000
The short answer
West Poultry Avenue runs through the Smithfield Poultry Market, built between 1961 and 1963 with a concrete shell roof once claimed as the largest clear-span dome in Europe. It replaced Sir Horace Jones's 1875 Victorian poultry market, destroyed by a fire in January 1958 that killed two firemen. The hall, Grade II listed since 2000, is now being converted into part of the London Museum.
Port of London Authority, EC1 Not sure if this is the HQ or not, it may have relocated, but it's still an impressive building in Charterhouse Street, EC1. — 2007 · Phillip Perry · CC BY-SA 2.0
1875 to 1958
A fire destroyed the Victorian poultry market in four days
Smithfield Poultry Market is a market hall in the City of London, built to sell dressed poultry, now closed and waiting to become part of the London Museum. The roof overhead is concrete, shaped like a shallow dome, and it was once claimed as the largest of its kind in Europe.
Before any of that, a different building stood on this ground. In 1875, Horace Jones designed a Victorian poultry market here, part of the wider Smithfield Market complex he built for the City. It traded for 83 years.
Then, on 23 January 1958, fire broke out in the basement, in a cold storage unit run by the Union Cold Storage Co. It spread through the maze of cellars beneath the market and burned for three or four days. Two firemen, Jack Fort-Wells and Richard Daniel Stocking, died fighting it. The Victorian building was destroyed completely.
1961 to 1963
Traders rejected one design before the dome was built
The City rebuilt on the same spot between 1961 and 1963, hiring architects T P Bennett and engineers Povl Ahm and Jack Zunz of Ove Arup & Partners. Traders had rejected the first plan, which put deliveries on the ground floor and trading above it. The final design flipped that: trading at ground level, offices on a gallery above, delivery bays cut into the north and south walls. The roof, poured as a single curved concrete shell, cost £2 million and became Grade II listed in 2000.
1963 to 2000
A roofer built the dome young and restored it old
Chris Johnson, then a young apprentice roofer, worked on that original crew, laying the copper cladding over the concrete. He would return decades later, an old man by then, to help restore the same roof. The market kept trading poultry under that dome for years after, until business finally moved on and the hall went quiet.
Up the street, at the corner of Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Road, a German V-2 rocket hit on 8 March 1945, killing 110 people and wrecking the buildings around it. That was 13 years before the fire that took the Victorian market itself, on ground now just outside this hall's walls.
2000 to now
A museum is moving into the empty poultry hall
The Smithfield Poultry Market earned Grade II listing in 2000, protecting its shell roof and brick exterior. Trading in the hall stopped afterward, leaving the space empty while planners decided what to do with it.
In 2016, an international design competition set the building's next chapter: the Museum of London would move here, into both this hall and the nearby General Market. Architects Stanton Williams and Asif Khan won the job of converting the buildings, and the copper roof is now being restored as part of that work, the same roof Chris Johnson once helped build as a young man.
In 2025, the City of London Corporation announced plans to move Smithfield Market itself out of the City, to Albert Island in east London. After centuries on this ground, the meat and poultry trade is set to go.
The Smithfield Poultry Market is empty now, mid-conversion. A short walk south, the Smithfield General Market faces the same transformation, part of the same museum project.
The dome still rises over an empty hall, its copper roof under restoration for a museum that has not yet opened.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Prehistoric
Mount Pleasant
Cattle bone from the Biometrical Database of European Aurochs and Domestic Cattle, dated 2800-1800 BC, was recovered about 800 meters away at Mount Pleasant.
In 60 AD, Boudica's Iceni forces fought the Romans in the Battle of Londinium, roughly a mile east of this spot, destroying the early Roman settlement.
A church on the site of St Andrew Holborn, 302 meters away, is recorded from 951, making it one of the oldest named Christian foundations near this ground.
John Smith, the English soldier and explorer linked to the Jamestown colony, was buried at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, 234 meters from here, after his death in 1631.
Sir Horace Jones designed the original Victorian Poultry Market at the west end of Smithfield Market, which opened in 1875 and stood until the 1958 fire.
On March 8, 1945, a German V-2 rocket struck Charterhouse Street at Farringdon Road, about 100 meters east, killing 110 people and wrecking nearby buildings.
On January 23, 1958, fire swept through the Victorian Poultry Market where West Poultry Avenue now runs, killing two firemen, Jack Fort-Wells and Richard Daniel Stocking.
Architects T P Bennett and Son, with engineers Ove Arup & Partners, rebuilt the Poultry Market with a concrete shell roof claimed to be the largest clear-span dome in Europe.
What happened at the Smithfield Poultry Market in 1958?
Fire broke out in a basement cold storage unit on 23 January 1958 and burned for three or four days, destroying the Victorian poultry market entirely and killing two firemen, Jack Fort-Wells and Richard Daniel Stocking.
What was here before the current Smithfield Poultry Market building?
A Victorian poultry market designed by Horace Jones stood on the ground from 1875 until it was destroyed by fire in January 1958, after 83 years in use.
Who designed the current concrete dome roof?
T P Bennett and Son were the architects, working with engineers Povl Ahm and Jack Zunz of Ove Arup & Partners, rebuilding the market between 1961 and 1963 with a single poured concrete shell roof that cost £2 million.
Is the Smithfield Poultry Market a listed building?
Yes, it was given Grade II listed status by Historic England in 2000, protecting its shell roof and brick exterior.
What is happening to the Smithfield Poultry Market now?
It is empty and being converted, following a 2016 design competition, into part of the London Museum, with architects Stanton Williams and Asif Khan restoring the copper-clad roof.
