X-Nico

6 unusual facts about Billingsgate


Billingsgate

Billingsgate is also referenced in the song "Sister Suffragette" in the 1964 version of Mary Poppins.

The original riverside market building was then refurbished (by architect Richard Rogers) to provide office accommodation.

Grammarians' War

(The title page verso of the work contains an image of a bear being attacked by dogs.) This was a double-pronged reference, because in addition it parodied Whittington's pseudonym of "Bossus" ("bos" + "sus", the reasons for which are unknown), claiming that it was rather a reference to the "Bosse of Billingsgate" water tap, built in Billingsgate in London by Whittington's namesake, that Whittington had somehow fallen in love with.

St Botolph's Aldersgate

The others were St Botolph's, Billingsgate (destroyed by the Great Fire and not rebuilt); St Botolph's, Aldgate; and St Botolph's, Bishopsgate.

Thomas Edge

On 31 January 1614, Edge married Bridget Poyntell, spinster and daughter of Richard Poyntell, of the parish of St. Botolph, Billingsgate, at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Wright's Coal Tar Soap

Now non-existent, Old Fish Street Hill near St Paul’s Cathedral was the 14th century fish market, before Billingsgate (it is not the present-day Fish Street Hill by the Monument).


Billingsgate Fish Market

In 1850, the market according to Horace Jones, "consisted only of shed buildings ... The open space on the north of the well-remembered Billingsgate Dock was dotted with low booths and sheds, with a range of wooden houses with a piazza in front on the west, which served the salesmen and fishmongers as shelter, and for the purposes of carrying on their trade." In that year the market was rebuilt to a design by J.B. Bunning, the City architect.

Billingsgate Island

In Billingsgate Shoal (1982), a suspense novel by Rick Boyer, a fishing boat runs aground at Billingsgate and a diver sent to investigate dies mysteriously.

St Andrew Hubbard

The church stood in the in the Billingsgate ward of the City of London.

St Andrew Hubbard was a parish church in the Billingsgate ward of the City of London.

St George Botolph Lane

The church’s proximity to Billingsgate fish market prompted James Peller Malcolm to write "The narrow streets and alleys and their wet slippery footways will not bear description or invite unnecessary visits".


see also