Grimsby’s grand plan to become a tourist destination
Grimsby has an image problem. For many, it’s the fallen fishing capital, overrun with scroungers and hooligans, well suited to a name that sounds mirthless and bleak. “If the first person off the boat had been called ‘Nice’, it would have been much easier,” admits Richard Askam. “But we got Grim.”
Askam thinks Grimsby gets an unfair kicking, and is hoping to help turn things around. A proud Grimbarian, he’s the wearer of many hats, one of which is the project director of Projekt Renewable (PRG), a new enterprise tasked with promoting local opportunities in sustainable energy, and engaging the next generation to propel Grimsby onwards and upwards. “I want to show people there’s something here for them,” he told me at PRG’s base, a bright solar-powered box park of shipping containers, which opened in 2023 next to Grimsby’s Fishing Heritage Centre. “This is a billboard for the possible.”
A noble aim, more in tune with the town’s origin story. According to folklore, Grimsby was founded by Grim, a Danish fisherman who heroically saved the life of young Prince Havelok of Denmark before sailing over to settle on the Humber Estuary. This summer, Grim’s back. A statue celebrating the legend, which was removed from its spot outside Grimsby College in 2006 after repeated vandalism, has finally been restored. It will be unveiled on June 4, joining a display about Grim at the Fishing Heritage Centre.
“It’s no accident we’re located here, next to the past,” Askam explains. He sees PRG as a breadcrumb to the future – renewables are big business in Grimsby – but “there’s a huge disconnect between what’s happening and the awareness of it”.
Askam wants to turn this site, on Alexandra Dock, into an education and tourism hub. As well as hosting groups interested in renewables, the plan is to have pop-up events and run boat tours to the turbines of the Humber Gateway wind farm. “We want to activate this area, remind people there’s water in their town.”
That sounds faintly ridiculous, given Grimsby’s chief claim to fame is being, at one time, the biggest fishing port in the world. But it’s true. The town centre sits inland of the estuary; you could easily pop to Primark, or into the Time Trap Museum (the story of Grimsby, crammed into the old police cells) and not know it exists.
Will Douglas is doing his best to entice people towards the port end of town. In 2018, he took a 19th-century mission church on the ignored industrial outskirts and turned it into Docks Beers, a craft brewery, taproom, Mockingbird Street Food joint and high-calibre events space, with its own festival (DocksFest, July 6).
“It seemed mad there was no brewery in Grimsby, and we wanted to do something for the town,” Douglas tells me over a glass of Hard Graft. “We wanted to be close to the docks, in an iconic building, making beers with names reflecting the people. We felt if we got the story right, we had a chance of success – it could be a destination.”
It is working. Acts such as the Hoosiers, Slade, Stereo MC’s and Lloyd Griffith have gigged here, and a “Docks effect” has rippled out to nearby businesses.
Visiting Grimsby’s actual docks – a “town within a town” – isn’t quite so straightforward, nor obviously welcoming. While the fishing fleet is long gone, the port is still a powerhouse, its focus now on renewables, imports and fish processing – 70 per cent of the UK’s fish is processed here. Because it’s a working dock, you can’t wander willy-nilly and, before entering, must provide proof of identity and a good reason for being there. Fortunately there are several good reasons.
For starters, there’s Coffee on the Docks, an old wages office-turned-cool café. There’s also Alfred Enderby, an award-winning smokehouse, founded in 1918, that supplies haddock and salmon to the likes of Rick Stein and Marco Pierre White. Patrick Salmon took over the business in 2015 and, as his name virtually dictates, is passionate about both Grimsby and fish.
He shows me around, opening the doors of the smokehouse chimneys. The insides are encrusted with 100 years of lumpy, treacly tar, the irreplicable if gruesome-looking gunk that gives the fish its unique flavour. Salmon runs smokehouse tours, and is about to knock through to the building next door so he can put in a kitchen and run tasting demos.
There are about 90 historical buildings on the docks, and though most are no longer in use, “rent holidays” are available to tenants willing to renovate.
Emma Lingard, the corporate communications manager of Associated British Ports and a tour guide on the side, shows me the Kasbah, an area of narrow, angled alleys built between the old railway tracks, designated as a conservation area in 2017. We pass a house linked to a Soviet spy (“a tip-off call was made from here about the Kennedy assassination,” she tells me) and the enormous Grade II* listed Ice Factory, which once produced up to 1,200 tons of ice a day; plans have just been approved to turn it into a 1,000-seater venue and large hotel.
“Some of the movie Atonement was filmed there,” Lingard tells me. The docks were also used in This Is England and, in 2023, for scenes in the Netflix series Bodies.
“The docks are moving forwards, and we see the next thing as film and TV – film companies love it because they get a private estate with plenty of space,” says Lingard. “Grimsby was a little Georgian town, and then when the railway arrived, entrepreneurs looked at where the gaps were in the market and made money. It’s the same now. We have to stop living in the past, embrace the present, look to the future. Take a risk. It’s not the end of the line for Grimsby.”
Watch this space.
Essentials
Sarah Baxter stayed at the Little Haven (sleeping four), a lovely dog-friendly beach chalet in the Humberston Fitties, in nearby Cleethorpes; a three-night stay costs from £297 (07595 772771; holidaystaycations.co.uk)
Entrance to the Fishing Heritage Centre from £8.50pp (01472 323345; fishingheritage.com)
Alfred Enderby smokehouse tours run on the second Saturday of the month; £10pp, including a £5 voucher, advance booking required (01472 342984; alfredenderby.co.uk)
For food and drink, see docksbeers.com, mockingbirdstreetfood.com, docksacademy.com and coffeeonthedocks.co.uk
The Port of Grimsby is open to respectful visitors; signing in required. Emma Lingard offers various guided tours (grimsbytours.wordpress.com). Or visit on National Heritage Open Day (Sept 14; thekasbah.co.uk)
Further info at projektrenewable.com, destinationlincolnshire.co.uk
