From medieval London to the most innovative makers working today, through a year-long programme of events, exhibitions and experiences, Treasuring Brilliance will give you the chance to discover the people, objects, skills and places that tell the story of seven centuries of our trade and craft.
We are thrilled to announce Treasuring Brilliance, a year-long public programme marking our 700th anniversary that celebrates the objects we treasure and the people who make them.
Founded in 1327, the Goldsmiths’ Company occupies a distinctive place in British creative life. Our history runs through the story of London itself, from medieval craft and apprenticeship to the growth of trade and the City, changing fashions and ideas of value, and the evolution of jewellery and silversmithing as creative disciplines. Today, the Company supports the whole journey of making, from helping people develop specialist skills to championing makers and their work, establishing trust in the trade through the London Assay Office, and caring for our collection and archive.
To mark this historic moment, we’re opening our doors and inviting you to step inside Goldsmiths’ Hall, the site of our home in the City of London since 1339, a year-long programme of events, exhibitions and experiences.
Across Treasuring Brilliance, historic craftsmanship will sit alongside contemporary experimentation, unveiling a living tradition that continues to evolve and innovate. From apprenticeship practices stretching back generations to designers exploring new materials, technologies and forms, the programme will reveal how specialist knowledge is learned, adapted and passed on, and how skilled makers continue to transform precious materials into objects that are worn, used, given, collected and treasured.
“For seven hundred years the Goldsmiths’ Company has stewarded a living tradition. We protect, promote and train our craft today, just as we have since our earliest days.
In all that time, we have kept three promises: to train apprentices, to give to those in need, and to stand behind the hallmark that proves the gold or silver you are holding is exactly what it claims to be. Our job now is to be good ancestors too: passing on the skills, standards and generosity we were given.
What excites me is that this tradition is still being made and remade. The skills of making fine things by hand, built up over centuries, are being reinvented by makers today. We’re proud to back new talent, bring exceptional work to wider audiences and care for the objects and stories in our keeping.
Many people meet the Goldsmiths’ Company without realising it: in the hallmark inside a family ring, in a contemporary maker’s studio, in a gleaming sports trophy. Treasuring Brilliance is our chance to bring those stories together and invite many more people in – from the new Goldsmiths’ Gallery at London Museum, to the splendour of our Hall, to the buzzing industry of the Goldsmiths’ Centre. As we celebrate this anniversary, our hope is that what has been learned over generations goes on being shared and reimagined.”
A significant new public chapter at the London Museum
Treasuring Brilliance is announced ahead of a major moment for the Goldsmiths' Company. On 28 November 2026, the Goldsmiths' Gallery opens at the new London Museum in Smithfield. The gallery will showcase the Cheapside Hoard, a highlight of the London Museum's Collection, in its fullest display ever assembled, an extraordinary collection of Elizabethan and Stuart jewellery discovered in the City of London, alongside highlights from the Goldsmiths' Company's collection of historic and contemporary silver.
Placed within the wider story of London, the gallery will reveal how jewellery and silver can tell stories about craftsmanship and ingenuity, fashion and identity, trade and taste, and the people who made, wore and collected these objects.
The gallery will establish a new permanent home for objects in the collection and provide visitors a gateway to discover the Company's history and enduring significance. The Goldsmiths’ Foundation is a founding partner of the museum, following a £10 million pledge towards the transformation of Smithfield’s historic General Market.
Opening up 700 years of London history
The Goldsmiths’ Company’s history is closely woven into that of the City of London. Our records reveal changing patterns of apprenticeship and trade, civic life and philanthropy, and the standards developed to establish the quality of precious objects.
Opening on 15 March 2027, Making Good and True, a new history exhibition at Goldsmiths’ Hall, will bring seven centuries of people, objects and stories into view. Drawing on the Company’s collections, archive and a nine-year long research project into our history, it will explore the lives of makers and apprentices, the origins of hallmarking and the Company’s response to plague, fire and war. Historic documents, precious objects and personal traces of working life will reveal the community behind the institution, connecting its medieval origins with its work today. A new book offering the first complete history of the Company, The Goldsmiths’ Company: 700 Years of Craft and Community by Helen Clifford (published 12 January 2027), will accompany the exhibition alongside a series of public events.
Over the last decade we have undertaken a huge project to digitise our collection and archive, and in 2027 we will launch a new searchable collections online resource to make these objects, records and stories publicly accessible for the first time.
A series of guided tours over the course of the year will give visitors further opportunities to step inside Goldsmiths’ Hall, explore its historic interiors and collections, and discover a City institution that remains unfamiliar to many Londoners and visitors.
A guardian of trust & authenticity
The anniversary will celebrate seven centuries of the Goldsmiths’ Company’s commitment to safeguarding the quality of precious metals and the nation’s coinage. The London Assay Office, established by the Goldsmiths’ Company at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1478, tests precious metal objects and applies hallmarks that assure buyers of their metal content. Throughout 2027, it will offer customers a special 700th anniversary Commemorative Mark alongside their hallmark, with all revenue from the mark being donated to charities that support people working in our trade and craft.
On 9 February, the 2027 Trial of the Pyx will begin at Goldsmiths’ Hall. Continuing the centuries-old tradition of independently examining Britain’s coinage, the ceremony will see thousands of coins produced by the Royal Mint tested against strict standards of accuracy, quality and composition.
Seven centuries on, both traditions remain central to the Goldsmiths’ Company’s enduring responsibility to protect the integrity of precious metals and the nation’s coinage.
Skills passed down, and reinvented
The anniversary will look not only at objects that have survived for centuries, but also the knowledge required to make them. Celebrating emerging talent in contemporary silversmithing, a significant new UK-wide project, the Anniversary Awards, will provide up to £8,000 in funding to commission new works by six early-career silversmiths in partnership with six UK cultural institutions.
The craftspeople and institutions selected include: Caitlin Murphy (Ulster Museum, National Museums NI); Beca Fflur (Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales); Morvarid Alavifard (Birmingham Museums Trust); Abigail Asher (Sheffield Museums Trust); Miriam Hanid (The Fitzwilliam Museum); and Caiyang Yin (National Museum of Scotland).
Drawing on the places and communities around their partner institutions, the six silversmiths will explore themes including mental health, migration, personal histories and industrial heritage. Their works will form a new collection of contemporary silver, each piece rooted in a different part of the UK. All six will be hallmarked and accessioned into the museums’ permanent collections, going on public display from 2027 for at least five years.
At the Goldsmiths’ Centre, the UK’s leading education charity for jewellers, silversmiths and people working in the precious metal industry, the 2027 exhibition programme will begin with Spotlighting Getting Started (11 January–10 March) celebrating makers at the start of their careers. Forging the Future: The Goldsmiths’ Apprentice (17 March–23 June) will then explore the Goldsmiths' Apprenticeship Scheme, revealing how specialist skills are passed on and adapted across generations. A further exhibition, developed in partnership with the Institute for Design Informatics at University of Edinburgh, will consider the questions posed by AI as we look to the future of the jewellery industry (30 June–7 October). The programme will also include SHINE 2027, the Centre’s annual showcase of emerging talent.
Jewellery as art, innovation and personal expression
In autumn 2027, the focus will turn to contemporary craftsmanship, spotlighting new techniques, innovation and makers from the last century who have transformed ideas about jewellery and silversmithing can be. It will also mark the opening of Goldsmiths’ Hall’s new multipurpose exhibition space, part of a major redevelopment of the historic building by Nick Cox Architects.
Opening 20 September–19 December 2027, a major new exhibition Treasure, will ask what makes jewellery precious: the material, the maker, or the moment it meets a body. It follows that question through live making, film and extraordinary pieces from the Collection and beyond, in the new exhibition space and throughout the Hall.
The exhibition will coincide with Goldsmiths’ Fair (21 September–3 October) the UK’s leading event for contemporary jewellery and silver, celebrating its 45th year in 2027. Bringing together established names and emerging talent at Goldsmiths’ Hall, the Fair gives visitors the opportunity to encounter exceptional new work, meet the people who made it and buy directly from them.
Goldsmiths’ and the City
The anniversary will also reflect The Goldsmiths’ Company’s longstanding place in the civic and cultural life of London. On 28 April, a special 700th Anniversary Joint Livery Service at St Paul’s Cathedral will bring together The Goldsmiths’ Company with the Merchant Taylors, Girdlers and Skinners, which also share the anniversary year, with a specially commissioned anthem by composer Edward Picton-Turbevill, with words by Graeme Davies to mark the occasion.
The Goldsmiths’ Foundation’s charitable work and significant philanthropic legacy will also feature across the year, including its Landmark Grants programme, supporting organisations and projects in London and around the UK. This includes a significant grant to St Paul's Cathedral, supporting the restoration of its iconic Cupola, Ball and Cross, and training the next generation of apprentices in the skills the project demands, continuing relationship of support that dates back to the Great Fire of London.
A contemporary finale at Goldsmiths’ Hall
Treasuring Brilliance will culminate in December 2027 with a new commission by multi-award-winning experiential and mixed reality British artists Studio McGuire at Goldsmiths’ Hall. The spectacular light commission will transform the Hall, bringing contemporary artistic practice into dialogue with its architecture and creating a striking visual conclusion to the 700th anniversary.
Further dates, participating makers and programme details will be announced in the coming months.