Fresh Fish Delivered to Ferndown

A town built for cooking, with nowhere to buy the fish

Drive around Ferndown and you notice the kitchens. Big extensions off the back of family homes near Penny’s Walk, generous galleys in the bungalows out towards West Parley, room to seat eight when the grandchildren come over. This is a town that cooks properly and entertains often. What it doesn’t have is a wet fish counter. You can fill a trolley at the Kings Park end of town, but you can’t stand at a counter, point at a whole bream, and ask for it filleted while you wait.

That gap is exactly the one we fill. We’ve run the counter at 12 Bournemouth Road in Poole for over a hundred years, since the 1920s, and the BH22 postcode sits squarely on our delivery round. Order by 3pm and your fish is cut to order and on the van the next available day. We deliver Tuesday to Saturday in our own refrigerated vehicle, free, on orders over £40.

Two kinds of Ferndown kitchen, one fishmonger

Ferndown splits roughly into two sorts of cook, and we keep both happy.

The weekly family shop

Households with school runs and full diaries want fish that’s quick, reliable, and a guaranteed win with children. That’s where our coated portions earn their place in the freezer drawer: proper fish in a crisp crumb, ready for the oven on a Tuesday night when nobody has the energy. Keep a bag of frozen prawns and white fish alongside them and a midweek supper is never more than twenty minutes away. When there’s a moment to cook from fresh, a couple of fresh fish fillets, skinned and pin-boned to your order, go from pan to plate faster than most people expect.

The settled cook who entertains

The other half of Ferndown has time, a good oven, and people to feed. Retirees who’ve cooked for decades, couples back from a round at Ferndown Golf Club with friends coming for supper. For them we stock the things that are hard to find anywhere locally: live shellfish, dressed crab, scallops, and our smoked salmon, which we cure and smoke ourselves at the shop rather than buy in. We also make our own pâté on site, so the starter is sorted before you’ve thought about the main. Building a spread for a dinner or a celebration? Our ready-made platters take the work out of it, and the marinated deli counter adds the bits that turn a plate into a proper table. There’s a whole range of smoked fish too: kippers for a slow Saturday breakfast, smoked haddock for a kedgeree, none of it needing more than a gentle warm-through.

Why the Van Earns Its Place

Ours is landed on the south coast, day-boat and locally caught where the weather allows, brought to our counter, and cut the same morning it goes out to you. Nothing sits for days waiting to be sold, and there is always someone to ask. Because the fish is genuinely fresh, it behaves differently in the kitchen: firmer flesh, a cleaner smell, and a shorter cooking time than fish that has spent days travelling.

The delivery matters as much as the fish. We don’t hand your order to a courier or post it in a box of melting ice. It goes out on our own refrigerated van, kept cold the whole way to your door. The address by the bypass near Trickett’s Cross and the quiet lane out towards Stapehill are both on the round, and both get fish that arrives in the condition it left the counter.

Out towards Stapehill, Longham and the heathland edge

Ferndown doesn’t stop at the shops. It runs out into Longham by the Stour, up to West Moors, and along the heathland fringe past Stapehill where the houses have gardens big enough to lose a child in. These are the homes that host the Sunday lunch and the summer gathering, and they’re the ones that get the most out of a proper fish order. Pick up something for the table and a few smoked pieces for an easy lunch the next day, and a single delivery covers the whole weekend.

If you’d rather not wait for the van, you’re welcome to collect from the Poole counter yourself. There’s no minimum on collection, so it’s worth the short drive down if you’re passing through Poole anyway. We’re open Tuesday to Friday 7:30am to 4pm and Saturday 7:30am to 3pm, closed Sunday and Monday.

Handy for the commute

Plenty of Ferndown works in Poole or passes through it, and the Ferndown Industrial Estate sends people in both directions every day. If your route home runs near Bournemouth Road, it’s an easy stop on the way back: pick up the weekend’s fish straight from the counter, with no minimum order to worry about, and ask whatever you like while you’re there. It’s the closest thing Ferndown has to a fishmonger of its own. It just happens to be twenty minutes down the road.

Order fish to your door in Ferndown

Everything in the shop comes to BH22: Ferndown town, West Moors, Longham, Hampreston, Stapehill and Trickett’s Cross. Not sure what to buy this week? Our seasonal calendar shows what’s at its best right now, the recipes section has plenty to cook tonight, and the blog is worth a read if you’re new to handling fish at home. After 100 years and a 4.7 rating from our customers, we know the fish. Tell us how you like it prepared and we’ll do the rest. Order online or call 01202 747661.