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Museum of London to close in December ahead of major rebrand and Smithfield relocation

The Museum of London will relocate from its current site at The Barbican in London Wall to the historic Smithfield Market, where it will reopen as The London Museum in 2026

The Museum of London will reopen as the rebranded London Museum in 2026

The Museum of London has announced that it will close in December ahead of its relocation to its new £337m (€402m, US$458m) home in West Smithfield, where it is scheduled to reopen in 2026 as the rebranded London Museum.

Beginning June 2022, the museum will offer a final programme of events at its current home, including dedicated displays and activities to celebrate its 45-year history at the London Wall site.

Described by museum director Sharon Ament as a “living breathing building that buzzes with the energy of Londoners”, the museum will serve as a dynamic public space, offering exhibitions and events curated and designed by London-based talent and creatives.

The London Museum will be the first in the world to have a train line running through it   CREDIT: Atelier-Brückner

Located in the Smithfield area of London, the museum will call a historic market site home, occupying several long-abandoned buildings that have remained empty for more than 30 years. The museum says that the site will “retain the feel of the old Smithfield marketplace” in its redevelopment.

Once open, the museum will have longer operating hours, opening early and closing later, with extended opening hours offered on Friday and Saturday nights. It will also feature a ‘marketplace’, housed in rows of terraced houses around the perimeter of the General Market building that will host small independent businesses and social enterprises.

In addition, the museum will be the first in the world to have a train line running through it, with Thameslink Trains between King’s Cross and Blackfriars passing through the centre of the museum at regular intervals. The museum’s proximity to the Crossrail and Farringdon Station is hoped to transform it into a major tourist destination.

To reflect the museum’s rebrand, its sister site, the Museum of London Docklands, will be renamed the London Museum Docklands from January 2023. The Docklands site will remain open throughout the moving process under the leadership of its new managing director Douglas Gilmore.



Announced in 2019, the museum has been in development for several years and is being designed by a team of architects helmed by Stanton Williams Architects in partnership with Asif Khan Studio and Julian Harrap Architects. The masterplan for the site is to reuse and restore the building’s existing structure with “contemporary interventions.”

Conservation work has been led by Julian Harrap Architects and has included the restoration of the exterior of the General Market building, which was the first phase of the work to be carried out, and several other areas.

The redevelopment has also seen the discovery of several of the historic building’s secrets, including forgotten underground vaults, which will be used as interactive gallery space, displaying the majority of the museum’s collection, and Lockhart’s Temperance Cocoa Rooms, a 19th-century establishment that promoted abstinence by serving cocoa to market traders, which will be used as a cafe.

“They were trying to combat drinking among the market traders, so we’re going to restore this and it’s going to become a café,” Paul Williams of Stanton Williams told The Times.

Additionally, Ament revealed that the museum will place children and young people at the heart of the experience, due to the loss of cultural experiences caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We’ll be opening a new Museum of London in the coming years, and I want to put young people at the heart of our work. I want every single school in the city to have the opportunity to experience the awe of travelling back in time as they follow the life of a Roman child their own age. I also want them to see their own lives reflected in our collection, as we display the contemporary as well as the ancient,” she wrote in The Guardian.

“[It will be] more than a museum, it will tell the story of all Londoners – past, present and future; it will be a new civic space for millions of visitors to enjoy, 24 hours a day.”