London Museum’s first exhibition opens Smithfield vaults with Roman London finds

The London Museum will open its first temporary exhibition in spring 2027. The free show covers the first 50 years of Roman London and will be held in old vaults beneath Smithfield’s Victorian General Market.

The museum’s new Smithfield home opens on 28 November 2026 with its permanent collection on display. The Roman exhibition follows a few months later.

The Bloomberg Collection and the earliest mention of London

At its centre is the Bloomberg Collection, more than 14,000 Roman objects dug up between 2012 and 2014 while Bloomberg’s European headquarters and its new Mithraeum were being built. Bloomberg Philanthropies gave the collection to the museum in 2025.

The finds include the remains of wax writing tablets. One of them holds the earliest known reference to London, written 50 years before Tacitus mentioned the city in his Annals. Iron styluses used to write on the tablets are also in the collection. One carries an inscription, which makes it rare. As translated by the classicist Dr Roger Tomlin, it presents itself as a modest gift from someone who has come from the City and wishes they could have given more.

Lead curator Jackie Keily said the waterlogged ground had kept objects that would otherwise have been lost. “From these objects, we can begin to picture the intimate and everyday experiences of Londinium’s ancient inhabitants,” she said.

Vaults under Smithfield market open to visitors

The exhibition will be the first chance for the public to go inside the vaults. Builders broke through a wall in 2019 and found the 800-square-metre network, believed to have served the market and the nearby railway as storage. The spaces have since been fitted out to host exhibitions, experiences and events, and they sit at roughly the original Roman street level.

Museum director Sharon Ament said: “They are so specific, so evocative, so mysterious, we saw their potential straight away.”