Fresh fish, storied history at Billingsgate seafood market
If you’re eating fish in London, chances are it came from Billingsgate Market. The seafood supplier handles 250 tonnes of it a week and sells to restaurants and supermarkets throughout the city.
Old Billingsgate Market, left, in 1957 (Edwin Smith via Collage - The London Picture Archive), though in a different location, still resembles the present-day market, right (Ashley Winchester).
Fishmongers arrive well before sunrise Tuesday through Saturday to shift and haggle some 150 species of seafood. But a series of small and large changes have churned up the waters in the centuries-old market, leaving Billingsgate, and its sellers, caught in the tide of globalization.
Economics of scale
Since existing as a collection of riverside sheds in the 16th century, the market has at least twice outgrown its venue as London expanded.
In 1699, Billingsgate was formally established by Act of Parliament, but it was not until 1877 that an elaborate, 30,000-square-foot, glass-ceilinged building opened to house the expanding seafood trade. This Grade II listed Victorian building, designed by the same architect as the Tower Bridge, is now a high-end events venue, and recently celebrated its 140th birthday.
Old Billingsgate market, 2017 left (Ashley Winchester) and the market as it was on Lower Thames Street in 1920 (right, Collage: The London Picture Archive).
The “new” Billingsgate Market, meanwhile, moved in 1982 to what was then considered a wasteland on the Isle of Dogs. But London has once again grown around Billingsgate -- with skyscrapers shooting up from all directions and the nearby Canary Wharf financial centre -- leaving some sellers a bit green behind the gills.
“Land is worth too much money -- they don’t want us here. The value has gone up I couldn’t even begin to tell you” says fish-seller Sam Hart, of SA Hart, pointing to the development potential of Billingsgate’s current location at a premium.
Rumors of the market’s demise, however, have been going on for years, counters seller Mark Morris, of Leleu & Morris Ltd. His great-grandfather set up business at the old market after the first World War, and the Morris family was involved in negotiating terms and building the new market.
Still, he says, Billingsgate is experiencing a change in appetite -- well beyond real estate expansion -- that goes hand-in-hand with London’s shifting cultural makeup.
Whole new kettle of fish
“The old-fashioned ways of selling on the market floor for hundreds of years has changed,” Morris says. “When at one time it was a vibrant, proper market, now it’s almost like a handling depot.”
Aside from the early hours and until-recently remote location keeping the public at bay, Morris says 80 per cent of transactions are now done over the phone to buyers he never sees. The days of porters toting boxes of fish atop their heads vanished in 2012, but some traditions remain, including the use of paper ledgers. Moreover, the types of seafood sold at the market has shifted, with fish-sellers dealing in “exotics” taking over many stalls to cater to Londoners’ evolving palate.
“There’s new people to the industry -- Eastern Europeans, Africans -- (and) it’s these ethnic communities that are now the biggest customers of the market,” Morris says.
Slideshow: Billingsgate Market then and now. Fish porter, 1918, Rotary; Billingsgate Wharf, 1852, painting by John Wilson Carmichael; Billingsgate Market 1877, engraving, C. F. Kell; Billingsgate 1849 interior, art by John Syer; 1918 Billingsgate, Rotary; shoppers at the new Billingsgate, March 2017; Billingsgate fish-sellers, March 2017; Billingsgate, 1973, M.D. Trace; Billingsgate Seafood School, March 2017. Archive photos courtesy Collage: The London Picture Archive; 2017 photos by Ashley Winchester.
Sustainable future?
Whereas the market of 100 years ago mainly dealt in river and coastal schooling species, like haddock, and “huge quantities of shellfish,” now it’s a larger variety of seafood sold by fewer independent retailers, says CJ Jackson, CEO of the Billingsgate Seafood School, which operates above the market.
The charitable organization (soon to be rebranded the Seafood School at Billingsgate) is working, with Jackson at its helm, to steer Londoners toward sustainable fish buying, handling and preparing practices that have all but disappeared in recent decades. The school trains consumers, chefs and fishmongers in traditional seafood-handling skills, through outreach programs and courses in-house.
“The supermarket revolution has taught us that everything comes prepared,” says retired fishmonger, seafood school co-founder and trustee Chris Leftwich. “I think we’ve de-skilled the population with supermarkets, with lack of home economy in schools. … (The Seafood School) is trying to break down those barriers.”
How to visit: The market is open Tuesday through Saturday, with selling going on from 4 a.m. until roughly 8 a.m. -- though official posting times say later. To really get in on the action, come as early as possible, or catch a fishmonger as he's packing up for the chance on a smaller volume. Saturdays the market is open slightly later to accommodate a larger public crowd.
Address: Trafalgar Way, Poplar, London E14 5ST
Nearest transport: Blackwall, Poplar or Canary Wharf station
