Traditional Fisheries

A historic fish trade unit grouping 250 fish (like eels) into uniform batches for transport and regional rent payments.

Approx. 250 fish

A legal volume unit used along Scottish and East Anglian coasts for freshly landed herring, holding about 1,200 fish.

170.48 litres

A historic fleet measure representing a connected train of herring drift-nets stretching nearly a mile long.

Approx. 1 mile of nets

A medieval wholesale volume metric equal to 12 packed fish barrels or up to 12,000 individual herrings.

Approx. 10,000 - 12,000 fish

A traditional bulk count for herring standardised at 500 fish.

500 fish

A processing measure consisting of 25 fish threaded onto a wooden spit for hanging in smokehouses.

Approx. 25 fish

An East Anglian wicker basket with multiple handles, used to land herring and holding one-third of a cran.

Approx. one third of a cran

A rapid dockside counting tally of exactly four fish, born from the ergonomics of grabbing two fish in each hand.

Exactly 4 units

A stout two-handled wicker basket holding three hundreds of pilchards, and the working measure of the Cornish seine fishery.

3 hundreds = approx. 360 pilchards, 50–55 lb

A rectangular trough-shaped basket with squared ends and a plaited head-band, carrying three hundreds of pilchards on the carrier’s back.

3 hundreds = approx. 360 pilchards, 50–55 lb

A large rectangular box on squat legs with long carrying poles fixed to each side, holding about six hundreds of pilchards.

6 hundreds = approx. 720 pilchards

A lidded wicker basket holding half a hundred of mackerel, being seven to eight stone of fish, and the standard unit of the Newlyn mackerel trade.

Half a hundred = 60 mackerel, approx. 98–112 lb

A handful of fish cast aside as make-weight, allowing buyers a margin for undersized or broken fish without the need for inspection.

Pilchards: 5 fish. Mackerel at Newlyn: 12 fish, being 3 warps

An undefined trawl-fish measure recorded at Folkestone in the 1830s, used alongside the pad.

Undefined; 3 pots to a pad, but 2 pots to a half-pad

The export cask of the Cornish pilchard trade, originally 52 gallons and later described in legislation as 50, holding three thousands of pressed pilchards.

448 lb net, 476 lb gross. Nominally 3,600 fish, in practice 2,500–4,500

One quarter of a cran, made a legal measure for the fresh herring trade by the Cran Measures Act of 1908.

9.375 imperial gallons = 42.6 litres

Ten long hundreds of pilchards, being 1,200 fish rather than a thousand.

1,200 fish, being 10 long hundreds of 120