Fish Cellars

Fish cellars, dating from around the early 19th century. The building is constructed of stone rubble, with a slate roof featuring hipped and gabled ends. It has an irregular courtyard plan. The front range is a two-storey structure with an asymmetrical three-window front. A wide opening in the center of the ground floor provides access to the courtyard, with three hornless 12-pane sash windows above. A stone rubble external staircase is located on the right-hand side, leading to offices on the first floor. A canted rear projecting wing on the left was originally stables and salt pits, and includes a range open-fronted to the yard with an arcade of timber and granite posts, with net lofts above. A further canted rear projecting wing on the right was a later kipper house, with 20th-century lobster tanks and open-fronted sheds. Part of the wing on the left has been rebuilt and is now used as a public convenience. There are entrances to the first-floor net lofts on the Roscarrock Hill elevation.

The cellars were originally used for the pilchard industry. Initially, the catch was layered with salt on the courtyard floor until the bulk broke down, then loaded into leaky hogsheads arranged around the cellars. The fish were pressed using large stones suspended from long pressing beams slotted into brick niches in the walls, and the oil was collected as it ran along shallow gullies. Surviving features include the open sheds, gullies, and brick niches for these pressing holes within the west range of the cellars. By the mid-19th century, as the pilchard catch declined, parts of the cellars were adapted for herring production in the smoking house on the east side. Part of the smoking house has subsequently been converted into a shop.

The cellars remain in use by the fishing industry in Port Isaac, which now focuses on lobsters and crabs. The building's important elevations face the harbour, Fore Street, and Roscarrock Hill.