THOU SHALT HAVE A FISHY WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN
On a bleary morning trip to Billingsgate– 320 years young and one of the world’s most famous fish markets–patrick Galbraith discovers a microcosm of lost London worth protecting
IN 1879, Charles Dickens Jr, the firstborn of the great novelist, wrote that Billingsgate ‘is one of the curious sights of London’, but ‘it is not well to go very elaborately dressed, or with dainty ears’.
It is 4am and, heeding Dickens’s advice, I am standing just inside the entrance in a pair of old jeans. As someone who spent their childhood pestering the local fishmonger to let me hold his lobsters, being caught up in the riptide of the world’s most famous fish market is a multi-sensory delight. I am staring absentmindedly at a box of salmon when a tangy voice sounds from behind me, ‘watch your legs’. I wheel round and a weather-beaten man in a white coat rushes past, pulling a pallet of cod.
Constructed on a 13-acre site on the Isle of Dogs, Billingsgate in its current guise is a utilitarian green arcade, stuck in the shadow of Barclay’s Bank’s sparkling colossus of a building. Located just upstream of East India Docks and across the river from Greenwich, the fish market feels like the final chapter of Britain’s nautical epic.
Billingsgate’s formal history began back in 1699, when an Act of Parliament was passed making it ‘a free and open market for all types of fish whatsoever’. There was one exception —the selling of eels was restricted to Dutch fishermen, as a way of thanking them for feeding Londoners during the Great Fire.
In its early days, the market was a rudimentary collection of stalls. In 1850, however, it was decided that a more permanent premises was needed. An Italianate, red-brick building was constructed on Lower Thames Street, but, with business booming, it wasn’t long before pitches were spilling out onto the streets and angry gentlemen were taking up their quills to write to The Times about the intolerable miasma. Pleas for the market’s relocation were many—in the end, however, the existing structure was replaced in 1872 with a design, twice the size, by architect Sir Horace Jones (of Tower Bridge fame). The Portland-stone building he devised—with its vaulted 24ft-high basement—is a fine example of civic architecture marrying form and function.
Billingsgate thrived and, down the decades, a number of notable employees came and went, including the Kray twins, who endured their longest stint of legal employment there, and George Orwell, who never endured much at all, but had a fine nose for literary inspiration. But 120 years after it was built, the City declared that it had truly had enough of its streets being clogged with crates of salmon and costermongers and, in 1982, the market moved to the site it sits on today.
Jeff—he only gives his first name and, before long, I learn that asking traders for a surname is likely to be met with silence and a sharp glance—is a fourth-generation Billingsgate man. His business, Chamberlain & Thelwell, keeps the kitchens of the
‘A large, grey eel raises its head out of the drawer like a charmed snake’
‘If you don’t know your haddock from your cod, they’ll see you coming’
capital’s restaurants stocked with premium seafood. ‘So where does this all come from?’ I ask, looking down the bustling aisles at everything from tiger prawns to turbot. ‘From everywhere,’ he replies sagely, ‘the world is a very small place when it comes to fish.’
Further into the hall, I stop to talk Andy, who tells me that seismic plans to merge Billingsgate with Smithfield—london’s premier meat market—and New Spitalfield’s— the fruit-and-veg equivalent—look as if they’re going to be passed by Parliament. ‘I give us about four years,’ he reflects in a matterof-fact sort of way, ‘but it’s the guys at Smithfield they’re really going to mess things up for. They’ve been there 800 years.’ I want to know more, but Andy brushes me off. He’s said his piece and two kosher fishmongers are waiting to be served.
Towards the back of the building, I spot a Billingsgate institution: Mick’s Eel Supply is the last of its kind. John, who’s been in the game for 35 years, tells me that, despite the decline of eel, pie and mash shops, ‘business ain’t too bad’, largely due to demand from Asian buyers who prefer their eels still wriggling. ‘Come, I’ll show you,’ he says with a kind smile. We wander over to a set of metal drawers, or ‘yards’ as they’re properly known, and John reaches out for the nearest handle. As he slides it back, a large, grey eel raises its head out like a charmed snake. Tenderly, he lifts it up, runs his fingers down its scaleless slimy skin, and then pushes it back into the watery darkness.
At 7am, the throng simmers down and I wander towards the cafe for a plate of kippers, but, on my way out, I notice two West African merchants selling prawns for £10 a kilo. ‘Why are they the most expensive I’ve seen?’ I ask. ‘Because they’re the best,’ the men respond, insistently. That evening, I discover they really aren’t, but that’s the allure of Billingsgate. Any fool can hand over lots of money at Borough Market and walk away with good produce. Meanwhile, at the world’s most famous fish market, fine fare is available at marvellous prices, but if you don’t know your haddock from your cod, they’ll be sure to see you coming.