I’ve come across a link between the Hungerhill Gardens and halibut. More precisely, Ford’s Avenue and halibut. When I was at school, my science teacher told me not to sit looking like “a cod faced haddock”, but my first experience of halibut, as opposed to cod and chips from Elsie’s at the bottom of Carlton Hill, was in the 1960’s when I took my fiancé, now wife, to The Tree Tops on Mapperley Plains. Very posh at the time. Even then halibut was an expensive fish and was presumably in decline.
This was confirmed in a recently read Christopher Hart review of a book by Charles Clover entitled “Rewilding the Sea: How to Save Our Oceans” (Sunday Times, 17 July 2022) in which Hart stated:
“Dogger Bank in the North Sea once had its own “piscatorial megafauna”: halibut the size of a man; common skate as big as a dinner table. Since the 1890’s cod catches there are down 87%, halibut by a “staggering” 99.8%. In the 1830’s a small fishing vessel out on Dogger could catch a tonne of halibut a day. Today the combined fishing fleets of the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany land “less than two tonnes of halibut a year”.
Moses Ford (1806-1887), a well-known Victorian fishmonger in Nottingham and a tenant on the Hungerhill Gardens, would not recognise the paucity of such fish. While researching the origin of Ford’s Avenue (1st Avenue) and my belief that it was named after Moses Ford, I came across a couple of newspaper items relating to the family fish business. On the 29 April 1862 the Nottinghamshire Guardian reported on a specimen halibut being sold by Mr. Ford:
“An unusually large halibut was exhibited for sale, on Saturday last, by M. Ford, at his stall in the Market: weight, 12¾ stones, or 178¾ lbs; length, 6 feet, and breadth, 38 inches. A finer fish of this kind has not been seen for many years past.”
Not to be outdone, his son, Moses Ford Junior, advertised in the 7 May 1886 edition of the Nottingham Evening Post that he would have a real whopper for sale:
“A LARGE HALIBUT – M. Ford, Jun., Fish Market, will have to-morrow a splendid Fish, weighing nearly 300 lb. 6d and 8d per lb.”
Considering that the record weight of a halibut may be as much as 1000 lb then perhaps 300 lb is more of a tiddler.
Referring back to Ford’s Avenue the name was first mentioned in print c.1888, but “Ford’s-lane, on the Hungerhills” was included in an 1868 advertisement. An earlier advert suggested that Moses Ford was in occupation of a garden plot as early as 1846:
“WANTED, a steady MAN and his WIFE, with good character, and no incumbrance, to live in House pleasantly situated on the Hungerhills – Coal found and Rent free. One who understands Kitchen Gardening, for which a small Salary is allowed. Apply to M. FORD, 10 Bridlesmith-gate, Nottingham.” (Nottingham Review, 18 December 1846).
Presumably, Moses grew chip potatoes to go with his halibut steaks.
