3-028-281 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of Columbia Fish Market Bethnal-Green, [London], 1870. The 'magnificent buildings' of Columbia Market were erected by Angela Burdett Coutts at a cost of £150,000 'for the domestic and social comfort of the poor population...That experiment has proved an entire failure; and it was therefore resolved...to convert the place into a wholesale fish market, auxiliary to that of Billingsgate, with a view especially to the supply of fish brought from the eastern counties by railway. The large square courtyard, inclosed by the arcades of shops and the market-hall, has been roofed with corrugated iron and glass...The space, larger than that of Billingsgate Market, is well lighted, watered, and cleaned, and it is opened rent-free, to the whole trade. Since Monday week, it has been well frequented at six o'clock every morning, when the fish auctions are held; and the supply of fish, not only from Yarmouth but from Plymouth and the West of England, as well as from Whitby in the north, has been of excellent quality and abundant quantity...It is understood that Miss Burdett Coutts will apply for authority to make a tramway from the Great Eastern Railway...to the new Fish Market, so that the fish may be brought there by loaded trucks at night'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.