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Left An artist’s impression of the former precinct of St Mary Spital in c.1640, looking north west towards Bishopsgate and showing (foreground) the Civil War Star Fort; (right) the converted medieval chapel with its charnel crypt; and (centre) the Earl of Bolingbroke’s house (Spittle House), with Spital Yard and the principal tenement to its right.

Excavating Spitalfields Market

The MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) Spitalfields Market excavations in 1991-2007 were one of Britain’s largest ever digs. Four major publications are being produced to cover the results. The latest volume concerns the post-medieval era (1539-1880), which was a period that saw vast social transformations, as Chiz Harward and Nigel Jeffries explain.