There has been a market on the site since 1638 when
King Charles I gave a licence for flesh, fowl and roots to be sold on Spittle Fields, which was then a rural area on the eastern outskirts of London. After the rights to a market had seemingly lapsed during the time of the
Commonwealth, the market was re-founded in 1682 by
King Charles II in order to feed the burgeoning population of a new suburb of London. Market buildings were sited on the rectangular patch of open ground which retained the name Spittle Fields: demarcated by Crispin Street to the west, Lamb Street to the north, Red Lion Street (later subsumed into
Commercial Street) to the east and Paternoster Row (later known as Brushfield Street) to the south. The existing buildings were constructed between 1885 and 1893 to the designs of
George Campbell Sherrin. They were commissioned by Robert Horner, the last private owner of the market, and remain known as the Horner Buildings. The market was acquired by the
City of London Corporation in 1920, to serve as a wholesale market. It was extended westward to Steward Street in 1926, destroying the northern extensions of Crispin Street and Gun Street in the process. The
Cinema Museum in London holds extensive film of the market and its refrigeration systems in use between 1928 and 1930. In 1991 the wholesale fruit and vegetable market moved to
New Spitalfields Market, Leyton, and the original site became known as Spitalfields Market. The market stalls were redesigned by architects
Foster and Partners for Old Spitalfields Market in October 2017. ==Modern market==