The everyday life of a fish market

Billingsgate fish market is a fascinating social space for exploring the working rhythms and routines of market life, observing interactions between buyers and sellers, and recognising the important role of the fish itself. Constituted by an Act of Parliament in 1698, Billingsgate is the UK’s largest inland market and London’s wholesale fish market, and has been located in East London since 1982 after several hundred years in the City. Fresh and some frozen fish and seafood is sold to catering firms, hoteliers, processors and fishmongers as well as to the public (to the latter most often on a Saturday), but not to supermarkets. It’s a self-contained site of exchange and redistribution, tightly defined in time and space. The earliest time that fish can legally leave the market is four o’clock in the morning. The market officially closes at eight o’clock but if traders are slow to pack up you might still find something for your dinner a little later than that. In this article, I want to concentrate on the work that wholesale fish merchants, and their sales employees do in getting fish onto your plate.