Town in Lincolnshire, England
Grimsby
Legend says a Danish fisherman called Grim founded it. Centuries later Grimsby became the world's biggest fishing port, and it still smokes some of the best fish in Britain.
Key information
- County
- Lincolnshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Fishing heritage, smoked fish, the Dock Tower and the legend of Havelok the Dane
- What locals are called
- Grimbarians
- Famous people
- Austin Mitchell, long-serving local MP; the legendary Grim and Havelok; dock engineer James Meadows Rendel
- Football clubs
- Grimsby Town, the Mariners, whose club mascot is the Mighty Mariner
About Grimsby
The fisherman who found a prince
Grimsby's name comes with a story attached. A fisherman called Grim is said to have rescued a baby from Denmark, Havelok, whose father the king had been killed. Grim raised him here. Havelok later won back a throne, and the grateful prince is supposed to have made Grim's home a thriving town. The tale was told in a medieval poem, The Lay of Havelok the Dane. Grimsby took it to heart. The town's medieval seal shows Grim, Havelok and Havelok's wife, Goldeboru, and the legend has been part of local identity ever since. The name itself fits the legend neatly. 'By' is the Danish word for a settlement, so Grimsby is literally Grim's village. The Danes who settled this stretch of the Humber coast left their mark on the place, even if the story of Grim is a legend.
How a mudflat became the world's biggest fishing port
For centuries Grimsby was a modest harbour that silted up. Everything changed in the 1840s, when new docks and a railway link turned it into a major port. The Royal Dock opened in 1852, and the Fish Dock followed in 1856. Fish could now be landed in the morning and put on a train to the cities that evening. By the early twentieth century, Grimsby was said to be the biggest fishing port in the world. Steam trawlers crowded the docks and ice was made on site. Smokehouses, fish merchants and box makers filled the streets nearby. Whole families worked in the trade. The Cod Wars with Iceland then closed the northern fishing grounds, and the last dispute ended in 1976. The deep-sea fleet never recovered. The ships have gone, but the know-how has not: Grimsby still handles and processes huge amounts of seafood, along with frozen and chilled food, and the neighbouring port of Immingham is among the busiest in the country by tonnage.
The Italian tower on the docks
The Dock Tower is the first thing most visitors notice. At 309 feet (94 metres), it was built in 1852 and styled on the town hall tower in Siena, the Torre del Mangia. It is not a bell tower. It housed a water tank that powered the hydraulic machinery working the dock gates and cranes. It was Victorian engineering with an Italian costume on. James Meadows Rendel designed the docks, and the tower became a landmark that sailors could see from out in the estuary. Elsewhere you can find Grimsby Minster, a medieval church whose long history includes the modern title of Minster. The old Ice Factory, a reminder of how the fish trade ran, stands on the dockside. The Fishing Heritage Centre tells the story of the trawlermen, and the preserved trawler Ross Tiger lets you walk the decks of a working ship.
Smoked fish and the Mariners
Grimsby's most famous food is smoked fish. The traditional method, hanging fish in brick smokehouses over smouldering oak sawdust, has European protected status as Traditional Grimsby Smoked Fish. Haddock is the star, but cod, salmon and other fish are smoked here too. On the plate, that means a fish supper, of course, and a good chip shop is never far away. Locals also share Lincolnshire's local tastes, such as haslet, a savoury pressed meat, and plum bread, a spiced fruit loaf eaten with cheese. The fish theme runs into football. Grimsby Town, nicknamed the Mariners, were founded in 1878 as Grimsby Pelham and play at Blundell Park. Their club mascot is the Mighty Mariner, while Harry Haddock, an inflatable fish, is associated with the supporters. On 27 August 2025 the club knocked Manchester United out of the League Cup, winning 12–11 on penalties after a 2–2 draw. It was a classic night for a team that rarely gets headlines.
A town people love to joke about
Grimsby has a reputation as a place that gets teased by comedians, and 2016's film The Brothers Grimsby, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, set a lot of its jokes here. Locals take it with a shrug. They know the place has plenty of history, and the people who live here are proud of the fishermen who worked the Arctic seas. Austin Mitchell, the television presenter turned MP, represented Great Grimsby from 1977 to 2015, one of the longest runs in modern times. A town this closely tied to its docks was always going to produce political characters. Today visitors find a working port town on the Humber, with a Victorian tower, a fish trade that still smells of oak smoke, and a legend about a fisherman and a prince that has outlasted a thousand years.
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