Modern herring houses.


The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1868 shows two long buildings and several smaller associated structures forming a complex at this location, arranged around an enclosed yard, and including what may be a walled garden.


The original herring houses were built, together with a large house, by John Joseph Bacon in 1771, at a cost of £1,200.


A large building parallel to, but set back from, the road to St Michael's Isle, was shown on the original OS to the rear (west) of the roadside herring houses (PRN 2157.10). It measured 37m long and 8m deep. This was a very tall structure when originally constructed, substantially overtopping the herring houses to the east, and dominating all other buildings in Derbyhaven until the construction of the ornate late Victorian Marine Hotel in the centre of the village. It appears from old photographs to have had few original openings save for seven small, regularly spaced, windows under the eaves on each elevation; these were characterised by arched windowheads. Its design and lack of groundlevel windows suggest that it is likely to have been a storehouse.


The building was still roofed in the 1920s, but the entire roof structure and gable peaks above eaves height had gone by the 1970s. Photographs from the early 1980s show that the southern part was protected by a modern flat roof, but this part of the building has since been reduced to a single storey. The northern end of the building has been substantially redeveloped for domestic use and is now joined to the nearby eastern building by a modern link.