3-028-789 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Meat Market, Smithfield, [London]: arrival of an early meat train, 1870. 'Hours before daylight, the New Smithfield Market is a scene of busy traffic...it is the arrival of a Great Western meat train, by the Underground Railway from Paddington, that occasions the particular scene of bustle shown in the Illustration...The underground station, for goods traffic, beneath the Metropolitan Meat Market, is equally accessible to Great Western, Great Northern, and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway trains. It is approached, by carts and waggons with horses, from the street above, descending a circular or spiral road, with a rather steep incline. These vehicles carry away, for the butchers in London, a portion of the carcasses arriving by train; but the parcels of meat destined for sale in the Metropolitan Market find a more expeditious conveyance, being simply laid upon a movable platform, which rises, by the power of the hydraulic lift, in one moment to the floor of the market above. Here they are received and arranged in the stalls for sale. The whole vast business in this market is conducted with admirable good order, and contrasts favourably with the old state of things, which Londoners can well remember'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.