The World Famous Craster Kipper

For over 100 years L Robson & Sons Ltd have produced highly acclaimed oak smoked delicacies in the small fishing village of Craster on Northumberland’s Heritage Coastline.

Still to this day the fourth generation family business continues to cure fish using traditional methods in the original smokehouses built in 1865 by the Craster Family. Wandering the village’s cobbled streets, you may witness grey plumes of smoke funnelling out from the building’s vents, dispersing the distinctive and delectable smell commonly associated with Craster.

Butterflied smoked herring has played its part in British cuisine for hundreds of years, but kippers – the name given to fish split and smoked in this way – from the village of Craster are cherished across the country. The story of how this happened is largely down to L Robson & Sons Ltd – a family business which has endured plummeting fish stocks and resisted mass-production techniques to ensure the quality, taste and texture of their kippers remains unchallenged.

William Robson first arrived in Craster around 1890 from a herring yard in Newton. He would later purchase the smokehouse from the Craster family and commence trading in 1906. From then, “Robson’s Smokehouse” has passed through four generations and today is run by Neil Robson.

At the turn of the 20th century, things in Craster looked very different indeed. The North Sea was teeming with herring and some twenty boats supplied four kipper yards in the village. Great barrels of salt herring were exported to Europe and fresh kippers were dispatched en masse to all corners of the United Kingdom. During this period, Craster, along with Seahouses 10 miles up the coast, were proclaimed as the Kipper Capitals of England, at times smoking more than 25,000 fish in a single day.

A lot has changed since then. Most notably, the fish are no longer caught locally. The number of herring caught off Northumberland was plentiful for many decades, but then overfishing became a serious issue. The numbers declined rapidly in the 1970s and in 1977, a blanket ban on herring fishing on the east coast was introduced, sending the industry into turmoil. Overnight ‘kipperers’ up and down the east coast found themselves out of business. Thankfully, ‘Robson’s’ were ahead of the game and had already begun sourcing herring from more reliable locations, initially on the west coast of Scotland, then from Iceland. Of the four kipper yards that were once part of Craster’s infrastructure, only one smokehouse remains today. The fish now come from Norway, where the quality is excellent, there is no shortage, and they can be sourced sustainably. This also means that Craster Kippers can be produced and sold throughout the year.

The process of producing the Craster Kipper remains essentially the same as it ever was, with a few subtle changes that have been made possible due to modernisation. The herring are now split on a machine – rather than by the hands of the Herring Girls – for example, before being placed into brine for an optimal time of 20 minutes to ensure the unique flavour and freshness is preserved.

“In the early 1900s the Herring were often gutted by Scottish fishwives who lived in ramshackle buildings called ‘kip houses’ which were only suitable for sleeping in. This is where the saying ‘having a kip’ originates from.”

After this, the herring are placed onto stainless steel tenterhooks. Once on the hooks, they are hung in the dark, high, narrow 130-year-old smokehouses where a thick charred layer of tar coats the walls of each room. One vital element of the process that has remained completely unchanged for all this time is the smoking. Oak sawdust and whitewood shavings are piled on the floor of the smokehouse and lit to smoke the herring for between 14 and 16 hours. Once the fires are lit and the doors are shut, the only light that enters is from the high-level vents from which the resulting smoke pours. Walk outside the working smokehouse and you will witness grey plumes of smoke billowing out and drift through the village.

With their product now available year-round, it will come as no surprise that the business continues to grow. Craster Kippers remain as popular as ever with visitors to the village and queues for the on-site shop are often seen snaking down towards the harbour front. Today, however, a large proportion of their business comes from supplying Waitrose, which they have been doing now for over two decades. The decision to supply the supermarket has enabled Robsons to move with the times in a sustainable way and has provided regular employment for up to 15 local people. Despite lucrative offers from other supermarkets and potential upscale and expansion opportunities, Neil Robson remains adamant that he wants to stay where his family have worked for over a century. Robson & Sons is an organisation with immeasurable importance to the local community and one we would all like to see prosper for centuries to come. The future looks bright. Neil’s daughter, Olivia, is as passionate about the tradition as her father, grandfather, and great grandfather were before her. We can rest assured that the traditional methods of smoking Craster Kippers will be passed on to yet another generation.

From a small corner of Northumberland, L Robson & Sons Ltd has earned an enviable reputation as one of the finest producers of kippers in Britain. Whilst this reputation continues to be enhanced by its endorsement on television programmes and the approval of many celebrity chefs, it is the quality, taste and texture of their produce that continues to underpin the longevity of this remarkable food establishment.

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