MTL Medal Fisheries fish processing and smoking factory

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TA2711SE 699-1/5/118

GRIMSBY The Docks FISH DOCK ROAD (East side) MTL Medal Fisheries fish processing and smoking factory

GV II

Fish processing and smoking factory. Late C19, with later alterations. Brick, rendered, apart from smoking tower. Colourwashed to Fish Dock Road front. Concrete tile roof. Three storeys with two-storey outshut to Surtees Street; tower rises to four-storey height.

EXTERIOR: Fish Dock Road front with three first-floor openings. Ground floor has central segmental-arched door flanked by single segmental-arched three-light cross-windows with wood mullions and transoms. Upper floors have central board doors flanked by circular cast-iron tie-bar ends and smaller windows: first-floor windows beneath segmental arches; second-floor windows beneath lintels at eaves level, all with C20 glazing. All doors and windows have stone sills. Pair of small casements to first-floor right. Bracketed gutter. Hipped roof with projecting smoking tower set back to right. Tower has brick base and shallow wooden top section with rows of centrally-pivoted wooden ventilator flaps to each side: four to front and rear, five to left and right returns; pyramidal roof with tall central cowl with wind-vane.

Surtees Street front: three irregularly-spaced first-floor openings. Two-storey front section has wide board door with strap hinges to right of centre, single window to right and two to left. First floor: segmental-headed board door above ground-floor entrance; single segmental-headed window to right with moulded brick sill, single C20 window to left. C20 glazing throughout. Third storey to main range behind has pair of original square windows, one retaining some glazing bars.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

One of an important series of small fish processing and smoking factories at Grimsby, dating from the period when Grimsby was one of the foremost fishing centres in the world. This factory, which is still in operation, is the only example here with a square-section smoking tower with a single cowl, rather than a linear bank of chimneys with separate cowls, and its design is believed to be unique. Of additional interest as one of a close group of smoking houses of various dates and designs in the square bounded by Surtees Street, Brown Street and Sidebottom Street (qv).

Listing NGR: TA2794811038