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Built structures · Smokehouses and smoke rooms
Traditional chimney smokehouse
A brick chimney smokehouse associated with Grimsby's traditional fish-curing trade. Individual buildings varied; one working Alfred Enderby example documents tall chimney bays with smoke pits and speats for hanging fish.
North East Lincolnshire Council describes the Kasbah's smokehouse cluster and Alfred Enderby documents its own building and process.
A build is made where it stands: moving it means building it again.
Historical description only. Do not use this page as a construction, fire-safety or food-process plan.
North East Lincolnshire Council documents a smokehouse cluster in Grimsby's Kasbah; the detailed dimensions and smoking arrangement describe one producer's example, not a standard plan.
A reconstructed two-level grain-drying kiln at Acorn Bank Watermill in Temple Sowerby, Cumbria. A lower fire grate warms oats on a raised perforated floor; a baffle spreads heat, while smoke historically escaped through the roof ridge.
A surviving nineteenth-century stone smokehouse at Craster, Northumberland. Its tall, narrow rooms, hanging racks and roof vents belong to a commercial herring-curing works; the evidence describes this listed building, not a universal smoke
An excavated Scottish grain-drying kiln at Lockerbie Academy, with a deep stone-lined bowl connected by a flue to a separate firepit.
A fixed malt-drying kiln at Laphroaig on Islay, where peat smoke passes through damp malt before it is fully dried.
A domestic hearth chimney used to smoke cured meat in historical Scottish practice. It was part of the house, not a freestanding smokehouse, and the surviving chimney forms were varied.
A Tuckers Maltings kiln floor in Newton Abbot: the 1900 complex grew from two kilns to four. A 2010 photo shows wire mesh; the original floor used perforated ceramic blocks.
The Arbroath “barrel” is a hardwood-fired smoking pit with triangular rails and a cover. Its documented form belongs to the traditional hot-smoking of haddock around Arbroath and Auchmithie, Scotland.
An underground grain-storage pit is a dug cavity for keeping dry grain, distinct from raised granaries and portable silos. Iron Age British examples are archaeological interpretations; experimental forms and results varied.
A Cap-Pelé boucanière is an Acadian herring-smoking building. The documented Willie Niles example is a one-storey wood-frame structure with a ridge smoke vent and interior bays for hanging fish-bearing cannes.
Achcharu is a family of Sri Lankan vinegar pickles made with mixed vegetables or seasonal fruit and a piquant spice dressing. This version is a quick, refrigerated, non-fermented mixed-vegetable pickle.
The acocote is a long, hollowed and dried gourd used to draw aguamiel from a mature maguey. It is a harvesting tool: the sap is transferred to a separate vessel before it ferments into pulque.
Adrak murabba preserves young ginger in sugar syrup, a sweet South Asian preparation recorded in Indian cookery and food-processing sources.
Parkia biglobosa seeds are fermented into regional West African seasonings, including nététou, iru, dawadawa and soumbala. The yellow fruit pulp is a separate food, and names and methods vary by place.
Japanese reddish-brown vinegar from sake lees matured about three years, turned to vinegar by acetic bacteria; the vinegar of Handa and Edomae sushi rice.
A refined common-wheat flour blended for a broad range of baking; its protein and behavior vary with wheat, milling and market.
The almond mushroom, Agaricus subrufescens, was cultivated in eastern North America in the 1800s, lost its market, and returned as a cultivated mushroom from Brazil, where it is grown under several names.
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North East Lincolnshire CouncilHistory · Geography · Built form
The Kasbah: A Statement in Support of the Designation of a Conservation AreaThe council identifies a surviving cluster of traditional smokehouses in Grimsby, with six listed examples in the Kasbah conservation area.
The statement says smokehouse chimney styles and curing practices varied among premises.
The statement places Grimsby's industrial fishing growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Alfred EnderbyHistory · Geography
Our HeritageThe business reports that a dockside building, originally a smithy, was converted for fish curing in 1918.
The firm presents itself as a Grimsby traditional fish smoker with a century-old tradition.
Alfred EnderbyConstruction · Process · Form · Visual reference
Our ProcessThe firm describes its own traditional brick smokehouse as a tall chimney over three floors, approximately two metres deep and a little over one metre wide; these are one producer's measurements.
The firm describes a shallow sawdust pit and smouldering wood shavings in its smokehouse.
Haddock fillets are brined, drained on steel rods called speats and placed in brick chimneys over the pit; the producer describes overnight cold smoking.
Geograph Britain and IrelandVisual reference · Built form · Geography
Alfred Enderby, Fish Smokers, Cross Street, GrimsbyThe photograph is of Alfred Enderby, Fish Smokers, Cross Street, Grimsby, taken in 2010; its caption says it shows the distinctive chimneys of the smoking house.
The page identifies David Wright as the photographer and licenses the image for reuse under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA).
UK Government, Department for Environment, Food & Rural AffairsProcess · Geography · Typed link
Protected food name: traditional Grimsby smoked fishThe specification defines the protected product as cold-smoked cod and haddock fillets processed within Grimsby's administrative boundaries.
The method describes hand filleting, a 10–15 minute brine, draining on metal rod racks called speats, and placing the speats in smokehouse chimneys at heights suited to cold smoking.
The specification says sawdust is laid at the smokehouse base and smouldered to produce smoke.