The history of Brixham goes back over 1000 years and its role as a fishing port is mentioned in the Domesday Book.

By medieval times the port had strong trade in drying fish and curing pilchards, which has been recorded as taking place in 1500. 

At the end of the eighteenth century the fishing industry in Brixham boomed when the method of catching fish by trawling along the seabed with a weighted net was successfully developed.  

It was deep-sea fishing that developed the Harbour area in the nineteenth century.  The arrival of rail and development of industrial ice-making expanded the market for fresh fish far beyond the local city markets of Exeter and Plymouth.

The Brixham trawling fleet was the largest in England, with the fleet in the early 1900s being more than 300 trawlers under sail.  As motor trawlers took over in the mid-century the sailing trawlers mostly succumbed to decades of hard service with just a handful of the historic boats left today.

This later declined because of competition from North Sea ports, resulting in the fleet being reduced to just seven by 1930. 

The old Fish Quay shelter was where fish was landed, laid out and sold. In 1971 a new fish jetty, office complex, fish market, and ice making plant were built; with a further expansion to the fish quay and new jetty being made in 1985.

The current site was finally completed after a multi-million pound regeneration scheme lasting several years that involved reclaiming land from the sea. The new market complex was opened by Princess Anne in 2010.

Despite considerable changes and pressure on the fishing industry, Brixham now ranks as one of the most significant fleets and port in the country.