London's historic Billingsgate fish market is set to shut after the City of London Corporation voted to withdraw support for it, reports the BBC.

Billingsgate developed from an open-air medieval market on the banks of the Thames in the Square Mile to a bustling warehouse in Poplar near Canary Wharf.

These days, it is the largest inland fish market in the UK, first designated to sell only fish in the sixteenth century by a parliamentary act creating "a free and open market for all sorts of fish" -- apart from eels, the sale of which was reserved for Dutch fishermen alone as a favor for helping feed Londoners during the Great Fire of 1666.

Until about 1840, fish and seafood were sold from sheds around the dock but with an increasing amount of produce to deal with, a purpose-built market was constructed on Lower Thames Street.

But with the market running out of space and complaints about the smell of fish wafting over the UK's financial hub, a 13-acre purpose-built site was opened in Poplar in 1982. The large trading hall made up of nearly 100 stands and 30 shops handles some 25,000 metric tons of fish and fish products each year.