Old Billingsgate Fish Market, London Through Stunning Historical Photos from 1890s to 1970s

Old Billingsgate Fish Market stood on the north bank of the River Thames along Lower Thames Street, and for centuries it served as the beating heart of London’s seafood trade. The market began as a general wharf for all kinds of goods but had specialized in fish by the 16th century. In 1875, a grand new building designed by Sir Horace Jones opened to keep pace with the enormous volume of trade. Built from yellow brick and stone, it featured iron columns, a glass roof that flooded the hall with natural light, and large statues of Britannia and dolphins crowning the roofline.

Trading began well before dawn every day. At five o’clock each morning, the “selling bell” rang to open business. Fish arrived by boat at the riverside quay and by train at nearby stations. The main hall was kept cold and wet to preserve the catch, and the air carried a thick smell of salt and fish that drifted into the surrounding streets.

The men who moved the fish were known as fish porters, and they were one of the most recognizable sights in the City of London’s early mornings. They wore heavy leather helmets called “bobbing hats” with flat tops designed to balance two or three stacked crates of fish — loads that could reach 100 pounds — directly on their heads. This method let them move quickly through narrow, slippery aisles without blocking one another.

Porters held special licenses to operate inside the market, and many followed their fathers and grandfathers into the trade. The work was relentless — constant shouting filled the hall as men called out prices and directions above the noise of crates scraping across wet stone floors.

The range of seafood on offer was vast. Merchants sold Scottish salmon, Thames eels, and shellfish from the English coast. Buyers from restaurants and grocery stores walked the aisles inspecting every catch, checking for clear eyes and bright scales as signs of freshness. Speed mattered above everything — fish spoils fast, and the whole operation was built around moving product before it lost value.

The weeks around Easter were among the busiest of the year. Christian tradition drove a sharp spike in fish purchases ahead of Good Friday, pushing every corner of the market — stalls, aisles, and the street outside — to capacity.

By the late 1930s, Lower Thames Street outside the market was a constant stream of lorries, carts, and workers. Deliveries arrived from all directions, and the cobblestones were perpetually wet from ice and fish water. Hundreds of people worked inside the building daily — salesmen, clerks, porters, and cleaners all operating in tight coordination.

When World War II began, the threat of German air raids forced a temporary relocation. Market operations shifted to Epsom in 1939 as a precaution against bombing. After the war ended, the market reopened at its original Thames Street site and resumed full operations.

The postwar decades brought the market’s most heavily photographed era. Porters hauled wooden carts loaded with crates across wet cobblestones, sometimes pulling them all the way across London Bridge. The sight of men in bobbing hats navigating the streets became iconic to the City’s identity.

In 1954, photographers captured some of the most vivid portraits of the porters and their working environment. Cart horses still fed from nosebags outside the entrance that year, a sign that even as lorries took over deliveries, older methods hadn’t fully disappeared.

The market’s fame extended into popular culture. In 1965, the film The Sandwich Man used Billingsgate as a backdrop, with actors Michael Bentine and Diana Dors appearing on set amid the familiar chaos of the trading floor.

By the 1970s, the Victorian building was straining under the demands of modern wholesale trade. The shellfish section operated from a dedicated space in the basement, keeping that specialty trade separate from the main floor above. The surrounding City of London was changing rapidly, with new office towers rising around the old market.

In 1982, trading moved to a new purpose-built facility at West India Dock. The original Victorian building on Lower Thames Street was left empty, its trading hall silent for the first time in over a century.