At the beginning of last century, twenty boats supplied Craster’s herring yards, the freshly smoked kippers dispatched daily to Billingsgate market. Now, thanks to over-fishing, only L. Robson and Sons’ yard remains but, wonderfully, the herring are cured in the Victorian smokehouses in the traditional way (salmon, too).

After salting, the split herring are hung on tenter-hooks above fires of white wood chips and oak sawdust and left to quietly smoke for 14 to 16 hours. With the fires brightly glowing in the smoke-blackened rooms, there’s more than a whiff of wizardry and ancient arts about the place.