London Museum receives world-renowned collection of Roman artefacts and £20 million for its transformation from Bloomberg Philanthropies
London Museum today announced a gift of the single largest archive of archaeological material ever received by the museum, a world-renowned collection of Roman artefacts uncovered on the site of Bloomberg's European headquarters in the City of London. The museum also announced £20 million of funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies that will help transform two of the historic Smithfield market buildings into a dynamic new home for London’s stories, expand access to its collection through digital innovation and make new archaeological discoveries available for research and public display for the first time. The support from Bloomberg Philanthropies is the museum’s largest private donation to date. Set to open in 2026, London Museum is one of the largest cultural infrastructure projects in Europe and will be a new landmark cultural destination for the capital.
The Bloomberg Collection includes more than 14,000 Roman artefacts uncovered by Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) archaeologists during the construction of Bloomberg’s European headquarters in the City of London between 2012 and 2014. The extensive archaeological project, funded by Bloomberg, was one of the most significant excavations in London's history. Known internationally as home to a 3rd century AD temple to the Roman god Mithras, discoveries on the Bloomberg site include Britain’s largest, earliest and most significant collection of Roman writing tablets, which reveal the earliest surviving voices of Roman Londoners, including the first written reference to London.
The temple and around 600 of the artefacts have been on permanent, free public display at the award-winning London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE since its opening on the Bloomberg site in 2017 – and will remain there – but many stories remain untold. The Bloomberg Collection will now join one of the world’s largest archaeological archives at London Museum, enhancing public accessibility, preserving it for future generations and offering unparalleled research opportunities into early Roman London. Much of the collection has never been seen before and the museum plans to make new objects from the collection available to the public for the first time when it opens in 2026. Based in its evocative subterranean galleries, situated at Roman street level, they will be a key addition to the museum’s new home.
One of the most ambitious cultural redevelopments of the coming decade, London Museum will become one of the city’s top visitor attractions and play a key role in the transformation of Smithfield, creating a new cultural quarter for London. Housed within historic Smithfield market buildings, the museum will welcome over 2 million people each year, of which half will be tourists.
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