Smithfield is the name of London's big wholesale meat market — the place butchers and restaurants buy meat in large amounts, not a market where you do your weekly shopping. It has stood on the same ground for around eight hundred years, and the name comes up in British writing the way a famous place-name does: 'Smithfield prices' means the going price of meat, and 'Smithfield porters' were the men who carried the meat. The area also has a darker history that older books mention — it was a place of public executions in earlier centuries. The market itself is moving out of central London, so the name is now often used for the old buildings and the neighbourhood around them as much as for the trade. There are places called Smithfield in other countries too; in a British text, this one is meant.