London: Farringdon Station, Smithfields and Charterhouse Square

A few more images from my nostalgia trip visiting an area of London that my parents lived in. Farringdon Station was opened in the 1860s as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground metro line but the present building dates from 1922. It was built together with a freight station to take livestock to a slaughterhouse to supply Smithfield Market. Smithfield was redesignated as a wholesale 'deadmeat' market in the 19th century and the Freight station was last used in the 1920s. Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for more than 800 years, making it one of the oldest markets in London.
Charterhouse was founded as a Carthusian monastery in 1371 near a 1348 plague pit, which formed the largest mass grave in London during the Black Death. Tens of thousands of bodies were buried there (some discovered during the Crossrail excavations). It was later dissolved and the building has been an almshouse and later used by two public schools, Charterhouse and Merchant Taylors'. Now it is partially occupied by Charterhouse Square School a much smaller primary school. The square is managed by Trustees, one of whom was inspecting the Square and chatted to me on Wednesday.