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Hull’s River Bridges

Hull’s River Bridges: Rich & Lou Duffy Howard began their ‘A River Full of Stories‘ project when they produced ‘Open Bridges’ as one of the most interesting events of Hull’s 2017 year as UK City of Culture.

Scott St, Bridge, River Hull, Hull, 1992, 92c8-01-31

Unlike most of the events in that year, this was one that was truly based on Hull and produced by people from Hull rather than put on by a team who largely came up from London to organise the year. Although that team received around 200 proposals from local artists for the year, virtually all these were turned down in favour of imported ‘culture’.

Scott St, Bridge, River Hull, Hull, 1992, 92c8-01-43

We are familiar with ‘taking coals to Newcastle’ but after what happened in 2017, we could replace this idiom by ‘taking culture to Hull’.

Scott St, Bridge, River Hull, Hull, 1992, 92c8-01-42

As I learnt when I met Rich and Lou for the first time in August this year, the support for including ‘Open Bridges’ was more than somewhat grudging and it required a considerable effort to get it included in the official programme, with some ingenious overcoming of problems raised.

Chambers & Fargus, River Hull, Scott St Bridge, Hull, 1986, 86c82-24

I wrote about Open Bridges here in 2019 when as a follow up to it Rich & Lou – with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund – produced “a film, exhibition, website and a book which will be given to each library and museum in Hull and the East Riding.” And those outside the area can see the book using our inter-library loan system. It would be good to see it published more widely – and perhaps one day there might be a paperback edition on sale, though its sheer size makes this difficult.

Downstream view, Scott St, River Hull, Hull 85-10c3-22_2400

On their Open Bridges 2017 web site they write “Open Bridges made history when for the first, and only time, all the bridges over the River Hull were raised, swung or closed simultaneously splitting the city in two at 20:17 hours on the autumn equinox, 22nd September 2017.”

The River Hull splits the city of Kingston upon Hull in two, with 13 bridges inside the city limits, all of which can be lifted or swung to allow navigation.

Shamefully despite its Grade II listing the City gave itself permission to demolish one of the, the Scott Street bridge (most of the pictures in this post are of it or from it.). It had been permanently raised since 1994, allowed to rot by the city authorities – which was brought to national attention by Banksy in early 2018 with his “Draw The Raised Bridge!” which may have been inspired by Open Bridges.

As well as drawing attention to the scandal of the bridge and continuing a debate about freedom of movement which ‘Open Bridges’ had also drawn attention to, Banksy’s intervention also sparked an incredible display of activity by Hull’s own fine muralists in what became the Bankside Gallery.

Anyway, at last I’ll get to the point. Here is a Facebook post by Lou Duffy-Howard on Friday 12th September:

” Today, Rich and I have launched a new Open Bridges project as part of Hull Heritage Open Days 2025 festival. Here is the link: https://openbridgeshull.com/hulls-river-bridges-25/

“‘Hull’s River Bridges’ is an online tour of all the bridges over the River Hull, past & present, inside & out. It explores the history of the bridges with previously unpublished original architectural plans and photographs, contemporary art and personal memories & stories.”
“There are contributions from many people. If you have a browse, we hope you enjoy it. And if you’d like to share it or pass on the link to anyone who might be interested we’d be grateful.”
——————

I’m proud to have some of my pictures again used in this project, particularly one of that scandalously lost Scott Street bridge. As well as photographs the site also has, maps and engineering drawings and a great deal more information about the bridges across the river and some of the people involved – including a portofolio of some of my work including my writing about the pictures featured.

In this post I’ve deliberately pictures which are not on the new web site – so do click on the links above to see more there – and of course not just my work.

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Hornsea, East Yorkshire – 13 August 2025

Hornsea, East Yorkshire is a small seaside town on the Holderness coast to the north-east of Hull, and is where my wife spent most of her holidays in her early years.

Swan Island, Hornsey Mere, Hornsea, East Yorkshire

Her Aunt Florrie (I think a great-aunt) lived in a small corner shop close to Stepney Station in Hull and had bought a condemned cottage on the town’s main street for £25, expecting it to be demolished within a few years, but it survived for many more. The accomodation was primitive, with an outside toilet, but back in the 1950s money was tight and most people couldn’t afford much. There is now just a small garden area with a few seats where it stood on the corner with Willows Drive.

Seventy years or so ago, Aunt Florrie could close her shop and board a train at 5.57pm and be in Hornsea 40 minutes later, and the last train would leave to take her home at 10.10pm, arriving at 10.49. People from Hull did often go to Hornsea for an evening, and commuters could catch the 7.12am from Hornsea and arrive in Hull for work by 7.52.

Primitive Methodist Chapel, Hornsea, East Yorkshire

The railway completed in 1864 brought an enormous change, with many new buildings, and as well as bringing in large numbers of visitors the population doubled in the next 30 years. But Beeching put an end to that, the line closed in 1964/5 and is now a popular footpath and cycle trail. Of course by that time most of the visitors were arriving by road.

As we did, taking advantage of our free bus passes and catching the 10.10 from Hull Paragon Interchange. To our surprise, given it was a hot day at the peak of the holiday season East Yorkshire buses had only provided a single-decker, and by the time it got to the bridge across the River Hull into East Hull it was full, with people standing.

St Nicholas Church, Hornsea, East Yorkshire

More people crowded on as it slowly made its way along Holderness Road, and at some stops people looked at the bus and turned away, though a few people got off. We raced past at least one stop leaving people standing – and it was an hour before the next bus.

Progress through Hull was slow due to traffic, but once we were in the country the bus could move faster – until we got close to Hornsea. The last half-mile took almost 20 minutes in a slow moving queue towards the Market Place roundabout – we should have got out and walked but it was too late by the time we thought of it. Our journey had taken over twice as long as the trains used to.

The delay was I think largely because too many motorists block roundabouts rather than allow others to move on to them rather than the volume of traffic. Traffic lights would probably keep things moving better here, but I suppose for most of the year it isn’t a great problem.

We walked down to Hornsea Mere, a large freshwater lake, said to be Yorkshire’s largest, then along Newbigin, the main street, where we went into the church hall for lunch – and an opportunity to talk to some local residents – and make a donation to local charities. I would have preferred a pub, but this was very much my wife’s day.

We walked on towards the seafront, tuning off to visit Wilton Crescent and the station before making our way along the promenade. Parts of the beach were almost crowded. The North Sea looked a little warmer than it often is, the tide was out and we walked across a large expanse of sand to the water’s edge, where small waves rippled around my trainers, but I couldn’t be bothered to take them off and paddle.

We walked further north along the prom. It was hot and there was a little haze and we could neither see Flamborough Head nor the record-breaking Hornsea Windfarms – Hornsea 1 became the largest offshore wind farm in the world when it became commercially operational in 2020, only to be beaten by Hornsea 2 which came on-line in 2022 – and has 165 turbines with a total output of 1.32GW, enough to power over 1.4 million homes. And they are building the even larger Hornsea 3 and Hornsea 4.

These windfarms are a long way out to sea, but when we stayed at a seafront hotel here in 2017 and 2018 we could see the closest in the distance from our first floor bedroom and from the cliff top at the north of the promenade.

After a short visit to the Floral Hall – now a large café – and a walk to the end of the seafront path we walked to the Cliff Road bus stop for a mid-afternoon bus back to Hull. This time it was a double-decker and there was seating for everyone and arrived on time for us to take another walk around Hull before meeting people in the evening.

The pictures here are in the order they were taken. More from our days in and around Hull in a later post.

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Hull 2025 – An Evening Stroll – 2

Hull 2025 – An Evening Stroll: The second and final post of pictures I made on our first evening in Hull last week.

Part 1 of this post ended on Princes Dock Street. The pictures here are in the order I took them on Tuesday 12th August 2025 and the first image here was taken just a few yards further down the street.

Humber Dock, now a marina, Railway Dock and the southern part of the Old Town have been brutally split from the rest of the city by the busy A63. Its hard to understand why the city council allowed this to happen with as it did, with so few places where this barrier can be crossed, and the provision of a rather odd footbridge, Murdoch’s Connection, is a rather unsatisfactory sop.

Fortunately we could manage the many steps up and down, otherwise we would have needed a fairly lengthy detour to where the road rises to cross the River Hull. This footbridge is perhaps more of a visitor attraction rather than a proper solution to access.

Murdoch’s Connection was named after Hull’s first female doctor, a house surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children on Park Street and a suffragette, founding the Hull Women’s Suffrage Society in 1904.

Too many of Hull’s dockside warehouses were demolished, but a few remain, including this fine block beside Railway Dock. I’d hoped to walk though Trinity Burial Ground, where I’d often sat in the past but that is now a building site.

A statue by the Humber to the west of Humber Dock Basin, The Crossing, commissioned in 2001 commemorates the many migrants who came to Hull from Europe, mainly docking here to take the train to Liverpool on their way the the United States.

High on the wall of the Minerva pub is this sign, probably a little faded from when it was placed here. This time we didn’t go into the Minerva but continued our walk as the light was fading.

A path from Nelson Street leads along the side of the River Hull past the former Hull Central Dry Dock. In use until relatively recently this is now a performance area.

As you can see parts of the riverside walk in the ‘Old Harbour’ were closed and our plans to walk by the River Hull were cut a little short.

Instead we turned down Scale Lane and made our way back to the city centre along Silver Street and Whitefriargate.

More from our short stay in Hull later. You can see many more of my older pictures from Hull in albums on Flickr and on my Hull Photos web site – links below.

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Hull 2025 – An Evening Stroll – 1

Hull 2025 – An Evening Stroll: Last month I realised it was seven years since I had last visited Hull. Too long for a city that played an important part in my life and in my growth as a photographer. So I booked train tickets and a hotel room for a short visit with my Hull-born wife earlier this month.

I first visited Hull around 1965, going in some trepidation to meet and stay with my future parents-in-law who lived in a small street of terraced houses around a mile and a half from the city centre.

I don’t remember much from that trip, though I think I will have been taken shopping to the city centre and also in to the old town, but it was the first of many visits.

Back in 1965 I was a penniless student and although I had long had an interest in photography and owned a rather basic camera I couldn’t afford to take pictures. It was only a few years later that I learnt how to save costs by developing and printing myself and began actually earning money that I was able to get a cheap camera that worked and began as a photographer.

And some of the first real photographs I took were in Hull in the early 1970s. During that decade I was teaching at a large comprehensive with a very heavy workload and had relatively little time to take pictures, except during the school holidays, and we spent quite a lot of those in Hull.

My work in Hull began to take shape as a project concerned with Hull’s heritage and its loss as large areas of the city were redeveloped and much of its traditional industries being lost, including of course the fishing after the final Cod War in 1976.

And my first one-person show took place in Hull in 1983 – and much later I produced the book ‘Still Occupied – A View of Hull‘ using the same work and more, one of my first self-published books.

Hull was always a city of culture, with an unusual collection of museums, theatres, artists, poets and music of all types. Its relative isolation from other cities and large towns made it very culturally self-reliant.

Shamefully when it became the UK City of Culture the huge majority of Hull’s own artists were sidelined, with the event being run by a team who came from London and dominated by events and people with no real link to the city. But some locals responded by doing their own thing as a part of the year – and I set up my Hull Photos web site where I uploaded a new picture of Hull every day throughout the year (and for some time afterwards.)

In this short series of posts I’ll share some of my pictures from my visit this month, starting with a couple of posts from our first evening. I haven’t captioned these images – but if you know Hull many will be well-known to you.

The next post will finish our walk on the evening we arrived. Later posts will include more from Hull as well as our trips to Hornsea and Beverley.

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A Long Day Around Hull – 2018

A Long Day Around Hull: We were staying in Hull for a few days to celebrate our wedding anniversary and on Friday 27 July 2018 we visited some old friends in Cottingham before walking to Oppy Wood in the morning. A bus took us back to the city centre where we bought sandwiches for lunch to a bus to Stoneferry where we sat on the bank of the River Hull to eat them before walking back towards the Wilmington Bridge and crossing here to view the extensive Bankside Gallery before going to the Whalebone pub to refresh ourselves before making our way back to the city centre for dinner and spending some time with family members at the Royal Hotel.

It had been a long and rather tiring day and I had taken a great many photographs, a few of which are included in this post, but rather more are on My London Diary – links in the separate sections below. In particular I had decided to make many panoramic images on our walk.

Hull, Cottingham & Oppy Wood – 2018

We set off early from our hotel in the city centre and took a roundabout route to Hull Interchange photographing a few of the interesting buildings on our way. I made a few pictures from the upper deck of the bus on the way to Cottingham and on the short walk to have morning coffee with old friends in their bungalow.

From there it was another walk to Oppy Wood, created by the Woodland Trust around 2004, after they had planted 18,000 trees as a living memorial for the 200 local men from the Hull Pals battalions who died in the Battle of Oppy Wood, near Arras, France on May 3rd, 1917. There is a permanent Kingston Upon Hull Memorial at Oppy unveiled there in 1927.

Unfortunately extensive work was going on in the area in a flood prevention scheme for the city and access to the site – usually open to the public – was much more limited than normal.

More at Hull, Cottingham.

Stoneferry, Wincolmlee & City Centre

Again I took a number of pictures from the bus as we travelled from the city centre to Anne Watson Street where we walked to a quiet spot by the River Hull to sit in the sun and eat our sandwich lunch, before making our way back towards the city centre.

Unfortunately there is only a short part of the walk beside the river and much of the time we were walking along a busy hot dusty road until we got to the footpath leading to Wilmington Bridge which used to take the railway lines to Hornsea and Withernsea across the river – but now only has cycle and footpaths.

We crossed the river mainly to photograph the ‘Bankside Gallery’ – pictures in a separate section – but there is also now a little more access to the river than before here. Hull Railway bridge was still taking goods to and from the docks.

We walked north to the end of the gallery, then made our way back down Air Street to Wincolmlee, still with many small businesses some in the old buildings in poor condition but now few making any use of the river.

We had got very hot and stopped for a drink at the Whalebone before making our way back to the city centre. There was still time to take a few more pictures there before going to meet family for a meal at the Royal Hotel at Paragon Station.

Much more at Stoneferry, Wincolmlee & City Centre.

Bankside Gallery

Hull has Banksy to thank for the Bankside Gallery. His ‘Draw The Raised Bridge‘ which appeared on Scott Street bridge on 26 January 2018 brought crowds to the area and inspired many to create murals on the many walls in the area, creating the extensive gallery.

The Grade II listed lifting bridge which has was closed to road traffic, its bascules permanently raised since 1995 was demolished in 2019-20. It had long been neglected by the city council both before and after closure.

Here I’ll post just three of the many images I took – there are many more at Bankside Gallery.

Hull Panoramas

On my visit to Hull in 2017 when it was UK City of Culture I had begun making a series of panoramic images in Hull, including many of the areas that I first photographed in black and white in the 1970s and 1980s for the work which became a show, ‘Still Occupied’ at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull in 1983, and later a self-published book of the same name and more recently in a couple of Café Royal zines.

Here are two of them – and there are another 16 on My London Diary that I made during this walk – at Hull Panoramas.

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Victoria Dock & the Old Town – Hull 2017

Victoria Dock & the Old Town: We arrived in Hull for a visit during the the city’s Year of Culture on Thursday 16th February 2017, 8 years ago.

We had come partly because I was hoping to have a show in the city – it would have been my first there since 1983 when ‘Still Occupied – A View of Hull‘ was in the Ferens Gallery. This one would have been on a rather less grand scale and fell through when the bailiffs evicted the group who had been squatting another city centre property.

But we had also come to celebrate Linda’s birthday in the city where she was born and grew up and for which we both have a particular affection, as well as to see some of the things that were happening for the special year.

And as always I had come to take photographs, in particular to revisit some of the many places around the city I had photographed back in the 1970s and 1980s. You can see many of those pictures on the Hull Photos web site where I posted a new photo every day throughout Hull’s year as City of Culture and beyond.

I wasn’t bent on a “re-photography” project. These often seem to me a rather lazy way for people who haven’t any real photographic ideas of their own to capitalise on those of other people – or even their own earlier work. Parasitical. Though I do have to admire a few projects that have been really well carried out.

For me photography has always been about my immediate response to the subject. If the scene has changed so too will I respond differently; and if it hasn’t why bother to photograph it again?

In particular I had moved over the years to seeing landscape and urban landscapes very much more in terms of panoramas. Forty or so years earlier had I worked almost entirely with tightly framed scenes using a 35mm shift lens. But now – with a few exceptions – I was working with the very different perspective of the wide sweeping view of a panorama. It forced me to think differently.

Victoria Dock, Hull’s timber dock had closed before I began making pictures there, although there were still a few small pockets of industry on and around the largely derelict site, as well as some remnants.

Now the dock has largely been filled in – the large timber ponds had already gone when I first visited. Much is now housing estates, leaving just the Outer Basin and Half Tide Basin and a slipway with water in them. And we were staying in a room of a house on one of the new estates. We arrived in early afternoon and after dumping our bags went out for a walk along the side of the Humber as the weather was fine for photography.

I had walked along this footpath years before, going on past the still open Alexandra and King George V Docks more or less to the city boundary. Now the path is cut off by the Siemens wind turbine site on the former Alexandra Dock.

We turned around and walked back towards the Old Town where a new footbridge took us across the River Hull and on to a drink and an early dinner at the Minerva. After the dramatic skies earlier the sunset was rather disappointing.

After a long rest in the pub we decided to wander around the Old Town. In 2017 the area was still pretty empty on a Thursday night in winter, cut in half by the A63, the busy road to the docks (or rather dock), a reminder that Hull is still a significant port. But the footbridge I was then very sceptical about in my account on My London Diary was eventually built. Still something of a barrier, but far less frustrating.

We walked as far as the city centre to admire (and photograph) the turbine blade on display there before turning round to walk back over the River Hull – this time we took the now seldom-lifting North Bridge.

We walked south beside the river along the deserted riverside path to Drypool Bridge where the path was then closed off after the needless demolition of Rank’s Mill for a hotel that didn’t arrive and through the streets – another long wait to cross the A63 – and back to the house we were staying in.

You can read more details of the walk and see more of the panoramas I made on My London Diary.
Victoria Dock Promenade
Night in the Old Town

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Holy Trinity, Pigs & Brewery, Hull 1989

Holy Trinity, Pigs & Brewery: At the end of my walk in East Hull I spent a little time wandering around the Old Town and came back to the centre the following day before catching the train home.

*Holy Trinity, South Church Side, Hull, 1989 89-8p-42*

Grade I listed Holy Trinity (since 2017 Hull Minster) is a remarkable survival despite some later architectural vandalism large parts of its original building from 1285 to 1420 remain. It is said to be the largest parish church in England with a floor area of 20,056 square ft and has some of the finest medieval brick-work in the country. Wikpedia lists its vicars from Robert de Marton in 1326; Arthur Robinson was Vicar here when the infant William Wilberforce, Hull’s most famous son, was baptised here in 1759.

Surprisingly it escaped serious damage in the Second World War when much of central Hull was destroyed by bombing. This side of the church now looks rather different with recent building work although the church ant gates posts remain.

These Grade II listed buildings date from 1868 and 1874, designed by the architect to Trinity House William Foale in a Gothic Revival stye were the Department of Transport Marine Office in Hull.

A gated alley between the two blocks leads to Zebedee’s yard and has a label (not visible in my picture) SPACE FOR OFFICIAL CAR’. There is now a first floor bridge across the alley connecting the two buildings.

Somewhere in Hull I walked past these pig carcases hanging from hooks and took a picture. I think there are four of them. It was rather a gruesome sight, but has not yet put me off eating bacon.

*Hull Brewery, Silvester St, Hull, 1989 89-8p-45*

I think it was probably on the following day that I returned to the centre of Hull and photographed the Anchor Brewery Brewery on Silvester Street. I was standing close to Kingston House not far from the west end of the street. The former Hull Brewery site is Grade II listed and was largely built around 1867 to the designs of W Sissons. The extensive buildings were being converted to flats and offices as The Maltings when I made this picture.

Hull Brewery began in Dagger Lane in the Old Town as the John Ward Brewery in 1765 and in 1865 Ward’s grandson Robert Ward Gleadow joined with W T Dibb to form Gleadow Dibb & Co. They moved to the new brewery site in 1868, and in 1887 having taken over several other Hull brewers became The Hull Brewery Co. Ltd.

In 1972 having over the years taken over 13 smaller brewers and a bottlers in Hull, Cottingham, Beverley and elsewhere they were themselves taken over by Northern Dairies and became North Country Breweries. This was bought in 1985 by the Mansfield Brewery who closed down brewing in Hull.

New Garden Street runs from Sylvester Street and along the back of properties on George Street to Grimston Street. On George Street was one of Hull’s most famous stores, Carmichaels, now the Carmichael Hotel. The sign on the buildings at left is for Carmichael’s Goods Entrance.

Carmichaels was set up in 1902 as a small shop but was enlarged in 1914 and later extended to the premises now on George Street. It became Hull’s poshest (and priciest) store, sometimes called the ‘Harrods of the North’, paticularly known for the glass, china and jewelry it sold as well as its posh cafe. Apparently the family sold it to Woolworths in 1963, but was bought by its manager in 1989 who wanted to restore its high quality status, but it closed in 1991.

People who worked there say that behind the posh side that the public saw the place was something of a shambles. The actor Ian Carmichael was the son of one of the three brothers who founded the shop.

After this I returned to Holy Trinity to visit its interior, taking a couple of images I’ve not put online before taking the train back to London.

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More from East Hull 1989

More from East Hull: The final episode of my walk around East Hull in October 1989.

*The Fish House, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-65*

The Fish House I think sold decorative tropical fish to swim in your aquarium but I was mildly amused by the small house on the pavement in front of their sign. Certainly it was unsuitable for fish, but I couldn’t decide what it was for, perhaps a kennel for a Chihuahua. And further up on the house is a picture of dog of some sort.

Putting “the fish house holderness road hull” into Google brings up, apart from this picture, a large number of fish and chip shops and restaurants mainly around Hull. But I think the fish here would have generally been rather insubstantial as well as expensive to eat.

Bush, Opticians, 337 Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-66 — *Bush, Opticians, 337, Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-66*

Bush are still there on the corner of Durham Street, though its frontage now looks rather different with a front extension across the whole of it. Though I’m sure this gives a better working space it has lost the character of the ground floor with its fort as the left, angular bay windows and glasses sign.

*Bush, Opticians, 337 Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-52*

Another view of Bush Opticians. The Bush family have been prominent opticians in Hull for many years, with Herman Bush being one of Hull’s first opticians in the mid-19th century.

The sign jutting out from the shop has the date 1865, and there have been branches run by members of the family around Hull and in surrounding areas where five generations of the Bush family have been testing eyes and making spectacles in Hull. Though one of the Bush opticians websites states that, it seems now to be at least six generations, as the obituary of the most controversial of the fifth generation, the late Sydney Bush, includes a quote by his son who worked with him for over 30 years.

*Country Butcher, Clip Joint, Newbridge Trophy Centre, 142-6, New Bridge Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-51*

Hairdressers seem often to have punning titles like The Clip Joint, though the scissors taking the lower part of the T was a nice touch. The years have been tough for small shops, particularly those a little off the main streets, and The Country Butcher with its curiously altered bay windows is now residential.

The hairdresser went though several name changes and has now become a shop selling “Eco-friendly, Handmade Products” and the Newbridge Trophy Centre at 142 has become a pizza place.

Mo's Cafe, Great Union St, East Hull, 1989 89-8p-54 — *Mo’s Cafe, Great Union St, East Hull, 1989 89-8p-54*

Mo’s Cafe in this picture was at the north end of Great Union St, at the rear of the Waterloo Hotel on the corner of Clarence Street. The buildings behind and at left were a part of the Rank Hovis mill site at Drypool Bridge and were demolished with the mill in 2015 for a hotel that was never built.

The sign on the window says Mo’s Cafe has moved to 18 Hedon Road, 2 minutes walk away.

*River Hull, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8p-56*

My walk in East Hull was at an end and I took a final picture before going to the Old Town as a walked across Drypool Bridge. The wharf at left is part of the Rank Hovis Mill. There were still a few vessels moored in the River Hull in what was Hull’s first harbour, with some fine warehouses on the right bank converted to flats.

The next post from Hull will be the last of my pictures there in October 1989 – and after that I will return to posting more pictures of London.

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More Holderness Road Hull 1989

More Holderness Road Hull 1989: Holderness Road is one of Hull’s major road, leading as it’s name suggests to Holderness, a rich agricultural area, largely of drained marshland to the north-east of Hull, between the River Hull and the North Sea. The road doesn’t begin in the centre of Hull but is reached either over Drypool Bridge along Clarence Street or over North Bridge along Witham, and starts where these two roads meet in East Hull.

*Don Dixon, Family Butcher, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-13*

Certainly the display of posters with a large pig peering at me over it was impressive, and Don Dixon Family Butcher claimed to be ‘A CUT ABOVE THE BEST’ and the shop is still serving customers at 236 Holderness Road in a parade of shops between Victor St and Balfour Street. It now has a web site with a wide range of meats on sale and gets some very positive customer reviews.

*James Stuart, Statue, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-14*

Probably few in Hull and even fewer outside the city now know who James Stuart (1836-1922) was but he was very well known and respected there during his lifetime and played an important role in the improvements in education and welfare of the people, both as a politician and a philanthropist.

Born in Preston in Lancashire, his family moved to Hull when his father became a preacher at the George Street Baptist Chapel. James became a seed merchant and founded a seed crushing firm, Stuart & Grigson, which later became a part of British Oil and Cake Mills Ltd and he became a director of BOCM.

He retired from politics in 1893 following his attempt to negotiate between striking dockers and employers which failed to stop violence from both sides. But he continued to take an active interest in the welfare of the people of Hull and was made an Honoray Freeman of Kingston upon Hull in 1894.

The now Grade II listed statue by William Aumonier was erected by Thomas R Ferens in 1924; the inscription on the plinth with a quotation from Stuart is difficult to read in my picture but given in full on the Hull & District Local History Research Group web site:

JAMES STUART JP

BORN 1836

DIED 1922

A CITIZEN OF HULL WHO BY HIS INTEREST AND DEVOTION TO THE WELFARE OF THE CITY WON THE REGARD AND ESTEEM OF ALL THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

I ALSO REMEMBER THAT I HAD A FATHER TO CONVINCE ME THAT AS I BEGAN A MATURE LIFE I WAS A CITIZEN OF A NATION GOVERNED BY DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES AND THAT IT WAS MY DUTY AS IT IS THE DUTY OF EVERY MANACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING IN THE TOWN IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD AND THE NATION TO PROMOTE THE WELL BEING OF ITS INHABITANTS JAMES STUART 1906

ERECTED BY THE RT HON THOS R FERENS AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY

*East Hull Presbyterian Church, rear, 336, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-15*

There is still a driveway here between two shops, now with a larger notice for East Hull Presbyterian Church and without ‘PICTURE FRAMES AND POTTERY DOWN THIS YARD’ and its notice now covers the full width of the opening between Beds and Bookmakers.

The Church web site states it began in the 1970s when a group found “they could no longer sit under the liberal teachings of the church they had been attending for many years.” The church is part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales and you can read a number of its sermons including those on Satan and Hell, on the web.

*East Hull Presbyterian Church, rear, 336, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-16*

Going into the yard I found both the church building and at left another notice for the FRAMES with a picture of a large pot.

*Shades, Southwells, Floggits, 359-363, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-62*

Opposite the church entrance on the corer of Jalland St is a parade of seven shops which are three storeys rather than the two of most along this part of the road. The two at left of my picture, Flair Ladies Fashons and Shades do not fit in and I saw they must be later rebuildings, perhaps after war damage to what is otherwise a late Victorian row.

The 2004 Holderness Road East Conservation Area Asssement states that Jalland St was laid out mid-1880s, named after Boswell Middleton Jalland, who died in 1880 and had been Mayor of Hull in 1836 and 1846. It also confirms that this and another group featuring alternating Dutch and pedimented gables dates from the 1890s and that “357 & 359, similarly gabled, were unfortunately destroyed by enemy air raids during WWII and rebuilt, unsympathetically, post-war.” And they two properties could not even agree on a common look.

I particularly like the picture of the Humber Bridge, opened in 1981, in the first floor window of Floggits with the message ‘We DELIVER ANYWHERE IN THE HUMBERSIDE area“. These windows have now been replaced without their posters and with rather unsympathetic modern windows.

*Humberside Majorettes, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-64*

The rather nice wide arched entrance at right has an attractive face over it, with a similar but rather annoyed looking head over the narrower door at left at Curtis House, 410 Holderness Road. This was a detached villa when it was built in the 1880s but in 1892 was extended ina vaguely Tudor style with further houses, Claremont, Elmhurst and Eastholme at 404-8, along with a two-storey mock-Tudor coach house.

The Irene Curtis School Of Dancing was created and run by Irene Curtis in 1950 and closed after she died in 1997. The school taught over 40,000 students many of whom gained medals in dance competitions. Humberside Majorettes or twirlers were apparently active from 1978-90 and were later continued by Alan Curtis after his mothers death as part of Arena Entertainments UK.

More on Holderness Road and East Hull in 1989 to follow.

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Around Holderness Road Hull – 1989

Around Holderness Road Hull: At the end of my walk on Monday 21st August 1989 (More from Hedon Road) I took a few pictures as I walked back into the centre of town to catch my bus back to North Hull. But I came back to East Hull the following day to walk along Holderness Road and some of the streets off it.

*New Bridge Rd, Rosmead St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-35*

New Bridge Road runs through the centre of an area of late Victorian working class housing and this corner is in some ways typical. It seems only a little changed today. It isn’t quite a crossroads, as the corner of Sherburn Street is just a few yards to the north of that with Rosmead Street and the two are at an angle. But in my picture it seemed a fairly busy corner with a car turning into Rosmead Street, two women walking and a bicycle with a trailer and ladders parked at the right.

Back in the 1980s there were still many workmen – painters, decorators, handymen of all trades in areas like this who still relied on bicycles and even handcarts to carry to tools of their trade while most in more prosperous areas had turned to vans. There is also another bicycle – or at least a wheel at the left edge of the picture.

Those typically Hull lamp posts have now gone, replaces by a rather less elegant design and the taller post then I think simply more powerful lighting for the busier road has been replaced by one carrying a CCTV camera and there is a pedestrian crossing here.

*Bandbox, Dansom Lane, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-36*

This rounded building is still on the corner of Dansom Lane South and Holderness Road but became a shop selling kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms as is now shared by a café and barbers.

Dansom Lane got its name from the farmer who was there in the 19th century. The rounded house at 2-6 Dansom Lane South & 1 Holderness Road dates from around 1850.

*River Hull, North Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8o-21*

The view upstream from North Bridge with both sides of the river line with wharves and factories and a number of boats moored, resting on the mud at low tide. The silo of R & W Paul and some of the more distant buildings remain but the left hand bank is now empty.

*Malton St School, Malton St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-23*

Blenkin Street & Malton Street Board School was built by the Kingston upon Hull School Board in 1899 and closed shortly before World War Two. It later became an annex to the Art College and closed in 1997 and was sold off the following year. It has since been converted to residential use as Old School House.

*Ron Hedges Emporium, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-26*

Ron Hedges Emporium “Incorporating House Clearance Unlimited” sold a wide range of secondhand goods some of which including furniture, cookers and bicycles were on display on the pavement in front of the shop.

*Abbey Industries, Williamson Street School, Hull, 1989 89-8o-11*

Williamson Street School was one of the first schools built by the Kingston upon Hull School Board established under the Education Act 1870 and constituted in 1871. This building has ‘1874 BOARD SCHOOL’ and the three crowns of the Hull coat of arms on its bell tower.

When I made this picture it was occupied by Abbey Industries. It has since been demolished.

*Cravens, 35-37, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-12*

This fine building was built in the late 1880s for the Public Benefit Boot Company, founded in Hull by William Henry Franklin (1848-1907) in 1875. From a small shop in Hull the business grew rapidly to own 200 boot stores, several repair shops and four modern factories, providing boots cheaply for working people and advertising them widely including by touring a giant boot on a horse-drawn cart around towns and villages in Yorkshire. The building is still there and is now occupied by an IT Consultancy.

Cravens Mini Market was another shop selling secondhand household appliances, furniture and other items.

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