The new London Museum, currently under construction at the historic Smithfield market, has been given a cash injection of £20m—its largest private donation to date. The money comes from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable arm of the financial media company Bloomberg.
The budget for the new museum, which was set at £337m in 2019, has since risen to a total of £437m. Last year the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the City of London Corporation both provided an extra £25m. The mayor’s overall contribution now stands at £95m, while the City of London Corporation's total is £222m.
An additional £100m towards the total budget was set to be raised through fundraising efforts, which the museum said had generated £45m as of September last year. Asked if the Bloomberg donation means that its fundraising target has now been reached, a museum spokesperson says: “We are still working toward our £100m fundraising target and this landmark donation brings us another step closer.”
The institution, formerly based at London Wall near the Barbican Centre, was previously called the Museum of London. Described as “one of Europe's largest cultural infrastructure projects”, the new complex is designed by Stanton Williams and Asif Khan in partnership with the conservation architects Julian Harrap.
The site will open in two stages: the formerly derelict Victorian General Market, home to the museum’s permanent galleries, will open in 2026 and the Poultry Market, which houses the museum’s learning centre, temporary exhibition spaces and collection stores, will launch in 2028.
Bloomberg has also donated 14,000 Roman artefacts to the new London Museum. The objects were uncovered by archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) during the construction of Bloomberg’s European headquarters in the City of London between 2012 and 2014. Objects discovered include hundreds of Roman leather shoes and writing tablets inscribed with the first written reference to London.
The Bloomberg site was once home to a third-century CE temple dedicated to the Roman god Mithras. The temple and around 600 of the Roman artefacts have been on public display at the London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE since 2017.
There are more than seven million objects in the London Museum collection, which incorporates one of the largest archaeological archives in the world.
