London’s lost and forgotten farms and food markets have been remembered in an archives exhibition, showing the city's surprising rural past.
Farm buildings in Highgate, Oxford Market near Great Portland Street, and Deptford’s last Market Garden, feature in a new exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA).
Picturing Forgotten London, which opens at the City of London Corporation’s LMA on 21 May, will uncover places that were once the toast of the capital or an important part of everyday life, but now left behind by successive generations of Londoners.
Oxford Market stood just behind Oxford Street, between Great Portland Street and Great Titchfield Street in Fitzrovia. Built in 1721 and selling meat, fish and vegetables, it was closed and demolished between 1876 and 1880.
Although it is hard to imagine London’s built-up suburbs as open country, the last farms in the area disappeared as recently as the early 20th century.
Picturing Forgotten London includes an image of farm buildings on Archway Road in Highgate in 1841.
Before fast transport, fruit and vegetables were grown all over London. Stephen Smith’s market garden survived until the 1930s, when the London County Council acquired the land to build flats.
Deptford’s market gardens were apparently famous for asparagus and onions.
Laurence Ward, of London Metropolitan Archives, said: “The capital is evolving constantly but despite the ever-changing landscape and skyline, traces of a forgotten London remain.
“Some of them have been preserved deliberately and others have been left behind by accident, and they all provide a fascinating insight into the capital’s history.”
