Fish Cellars

SW 98 SE 9/54 6.6.69

ST ENDELLION FORE STREET, (north side), Port Isaac No 1 (Fish Cellars)

GV II

Fish cellars. Circa early C19. Stone rubble. Slate roof with hipped and gabled ends. Irregular courtyard plan with 2-storey range on front with wide opening in centre for access to courtyard within. Canted rear projecting wing on left originally comprised stables, salt pits, range open fronted to yard with arcade of timber and granite posts and net lofts above. Canted rear projecting wing on right comprised later kipper house, C20 lobster tanks and open-fronted sheds. Front range of 2 storeys with asymmetrical 3-window front. Wide opening in centre of ground floor with 3 hornless 12-pane sashes above and stone rubble external stair on right-hand side leading up to offices on first floor. Rear projecting wing on left partly rebuilt with part used as public convenience. Entrances to first floor net lofts on Roscarrock Hill elevation. The cellars were originally used for the pilchard industry. The catch was initially layered with salt on the floor of the courtyard until the bulk had broken. It was then loaded into leaky hogsheads which were arranged around the sides of the cellars on timber boards positioned over shallow gullies. The fish were then crushed by large stones suspended from long pressing beams which were slotted into brick niches in the walls and the oil was pressed out of the hogsheads and was collected as it ran along the gullies. The open sheds, gully and brick niches for the pressing holes survive in the west range of these cellars. By the mid C19, when the pilchard catch was declining, the cellars were partly adapted for herrings which were kippered in the smoking house on the east. Part of this smoking house has now been converted into a shop. The cellars continue to be used by the fishing industry in Port Isaac which now concentrates on lobsters and crabs. Important elevations to the harbour, Fore Street and Roscarrock Hill.

Listing NGR: SW9963180752