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Fishing
Fishing was probably the first occupation practiced by our Stone Age ancestors. The Thames was a wide and shallow river until the major alterations made in the 19th century. Salmon nets and eel traps were a common sight.
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Nets drying |
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Net weights |
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Salmon nets
Fishermen stretching their nets across the river would have been a common sight in earlier centuries. Medieval netting tools and fishing weights found on the Thames foreshore at Putney are evidence of the thriving industry that once existed here.
In the early 19th century fish stocks in the lower and tidal Thames were destroyed by the pollution of human sewage and industrial effluent, but environmental protection of the late 20th century saw the return of many species.
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Billingsgate
Smelly vats of wriggling eels, oysters, crabs, lobsters, periwinkles and fish too numerous to mention used to travel upstream to Billingsgate each day.
Eels travelled in big slow barges, overtaken by fast cutters bringing the more delicate fish. At 5 o'clock each morning the bell would announce the opening of the market and the frantic bartering would begin
The introduction of the railways marked the beginning of a move away from transportation by river, but the Billingsgate fish market continues to this day.
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Billingsgate |
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Introduction
Fishing
