Toby Symonds
YOU can almost smell the sea osmosing out of this picture of the Briggait from 1965, packed to the brim as it is with retailers flogging their finest fillets.
Before it became the go-to studio and gallery space for artistes and connoisseurs, Glasgow’s Briggait was home to city’s biggest fish market. Now A-listed, the building was constructed between 1872-3.
As though predicting its future usage, yet out of sight here, the Briggait’s interior included a sculpted portrait of Queen Victoria, flanked by seahorses and medallion heads representing Neptune and the River Clyde. That the monarch was a fan of fish is without question: it was a staple of both breakfasts and dinners in the royal household. It seems likely, then, that “we” would have been very much amused by the tribute.
Towards the back of the photograph can be seen the merchant traders: W.A.A. Eddie, a company still at large and family run today. Jim Eddie was just 16 when he took on the business in the year this was taken.
“It was an absolutely thriving place,” he tells me of the experience now, “you wouldn’t believe the amount of fish that was sold.
It was quite a place and there was so much fish in there. There must have been about four fish shops in the Briggait itself. In the market, the majority of the fish that was sold was, shall we say, ‘on the hoof’.
It was buzzing.”
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