Visitors are invited to explore the former fish market building and meet the working artists in their studios for Doors Open Days.

The Briggait is one of Glasgow’s most significant historic market buildings, located on Bridgegate in the city’s Merchant City. Completed in 1873 to designs by Clarke & Bell, it was built as Glasgow’s purpose-built fish market, replacing earlier open-air trading and reflecting the city’s rapid industrial growth. The complex expanded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and incorporates the Merchants’ Steeple, a landmark dating from 1655, which survives from the former Merchants’ House.

For over a century, The Briggait was at the heart of Glasgow’s wholesale fish trade, supplying markets, retailers and restaurants across the region. After the fish market relocated to Blochairn in the late 1970s, the building fell into decline. A successful petition was lodged with Glasgow City Council by the Bridgegate Trust (now the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust) to save the building from demolition to make way for a multi-storey car park. An attempt to convert it into a shopping centre during the 1980s proved unsuccessful, leaving much of the complex underused.

The Category A listed building was extensively restored and reopened in 2010 by Wasps as a creative hub. Today, The Briggait provides artists’ studios, exhibition spaces and venues for cultural events, representing a successful example of Glasgow’s industrial heritage being adapted for contemporary use while preserving one of the city’s finest Victorian market halls.

Description supplied by the event organiser.