London Museum opens its new home in the restored Victorian General Market at Smithfield, with the Cheapside Hoard in its fullest display yet.
London Museum opens its new home in Smithfield’s Victorian General Market, in the City of London, on Saturday 28 November 2026.
Smithfield’s first written record dates back to the 1170s, when it was already a livestock market. The General Market had been disused for more than three decades. Its £437m restoration took ten years, designed by Stanton Williams and Asif Khan with the conservation architects Julian Harrap.
Visitors enter through Real Time, a covered former street, into Our Time beneath the domed ceiling of the Linbury Hall. Below ground, Past Time fills the rediscovered vaults with the city’s history, beside a live railway line visible through a window in the old salt store.
The objects include the Cheapside Hoard of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery, in its fullest display yet, the Lord Mayor’s Coach and Anna Pavlova’s “Dying Swan” dress. The opening falls in the museum’s 50th anniversary year.
The first guest programme, London Tastes, is co-curated by the writers Ruby Tandoh and Jonathan Nunn. The galleries stay open until 23:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, and booking a free ticket is advised for the opening weeks.