Spitalfields Market

Spitalfields Market began its life in the thirteen hundreds as a simple trading post in an open field. It sat next to the medieval hospital and priory of Saint Mary Spittel, which gave the area its name. The site remained a rural edge of London until the mid-seventeenth century when the city began to spill past its fortified walls. King Charles the First granted the very first license to sell meat and produce here in sixteen thirty eight. This original permission sought to feed a rapidly ballooning city population that had outgrown its cramped, central markets.