The oldest still surviving fish and chip shop in London is said to be The Rock & Sole Plaice in Covent Garden.

Operating since 1871, the establishment is said to have been the third to have opened in London when it did so at 47 Endell Street (on a corner with Short’s Gardens), serving its food to workers at the Covent Garden market and nearby factories and warehouses.

The shop was damaged during World War II, although it was badly damaged by a nearby bomb blast (while the cellar was apparently used by community volunteers to plan aid for locals).

It was rebuilt and reopened as The Nigris Fish Bar after the war and the new owners changed the name to The Rock & Sole Plaice.

The shop’s current owners, the Ziyaeddin family’s took over in the 1980s (and apparently learnt their skills from three local women – Anna and Rachael Fenner (who lived above the shop and whose father had run the shop for decades in the mid-20th century) – and local matriarch Mary Goody, who herself worked in the shop and the 1910s and 1920s, who taught them the trade. There’s a plaque commemorating the three women – known as the “Three Pillars” – on the side of the shop.

For more on the chippy which can be found just around the corner from the Covent Garden Market, see https://www.rockandsoleplaice.com.