Builders working under Smithfield Market in London broke through a brick wall in 2019. Behind it lay a whole network of Victorian underground chambers, buried and forgotten for decades. The space covers almost 800 square metres. It stayed hidden while crews renovated the old market building to turn it into the new home of the London Museum. Now the vaults are opening to the public for the first time, with an exhibition on the earliest years of Roman London.
The museum's new Smithfield building opens on 28 November 2026, and the underground galleries host the museum's first exhibition in spring 2027. It's called "Londinium: The Making of a Roman City" and tells the story of Roman London's first 50 years not through standard display cases but through projections, sound and real finds.
| Period | Event |
|---|---|
| 2010–2013 | 405 Roman wooden writing tablets found at the Bloomberg building site in London |
| 2012–2014 | Over 14,000 Roman objects from the Bloomberg collection excavated at the same site |
| 2019 | Builders discover 800 sq m of Victorian underground vaults beneath Smithfield Market |
| 2025 | Bloomberg donates the entire collection to the London Museum |
| 28 November 2026 | The London Museum's new Smithfield building opens |
| Spring 2027 | "Londinium: The Making of a Roman City" opens in the vaults |
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Museum director Sharon Ament says the vaults took the whole team by surprise. "When we rediscovered them, we were determined to open them up. They're so distinctive, so mysterious, that we could see their potential right away," she says.
What the Victorians used these chambers for
The building above the vaults is the General Market, built by architect Horace Jones in the late 19th century as part of Smithfield's large trading complex. The underground chambers were likely used to keep meat and other goods cold for the market and the nearby railway, before they were bricked up and forgotten for decades. Turning the old market buildings into a museum has taken nearly ten years. The museum will cover around 30,000 square metres across the General Market and Poultry Market buildings. The project's budget has already passed £400 million, with more than half coming from the City of London Corporation.
What's in the Bloomberg collection
Most of the finds in the new exhibition come from the Bloomberg collection: more than 14,000 Roman objects dug up between 2012 and 2014. They were found at the site of the company's European headquarters in London's financial district, along the course of the now-buried river Walbrook. Bloomberg donated the entire collection to the museum in 2025.
The finds also include 405 wooden writing tablets found earlier at the same site, between 2010 and 2013. They are the largest and most important collection of its kind in Britain. The wet clay soil along the Walbrook kept out oxygen, which is why the wood and wax on the tablets have survived to this day. One tablet holds the earliest written record of the city itself: a financial document from the year 57 that contains the first known mention of Londinium. That's nearly 50 years before the Roman historian Tacitus first wrote about the city. On another, professor Roger Tomlin has deciphered a message to a recipient in the city: "I have come from the City. I bring you a welcome gift" — a kind of Roman version of a souvenir brought back from a trip.
The exhibition will also show other objects never displayed before — a coin from the reign of Emperor Nero, a child's feeding bottle, and the oldest known cockroach eggs in Britain, found in the oven of a Roman bakery. Curator Jackie Keily says the collection "helped us build a picture of life in Roman London that we never had before."
The space recreates the atmosphere of the Roman city through projections and sound. The design is by the studio Journey, which created the Lightroom exhibition and worked on the ceremonies for the 2012 London Olympics. Entry to the vaults is free.
The museum opens in the General Market and Poultry Market buildings at Smithfield on 28 November 2026. The underground vaults with the Roman exhibition welcome their first visitors a few months later, in spring 2027.