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More River Hull, Lime St and Wincolmlee 1989

More River Hull, Lime St and Wincolmlee – pictures made in August 1989

*Clarence Mill, Drypool Bridge, Dry Dock, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8f-61*

Looking across the River Hull from the riverside path through the scrap metal you can see the Drypool Bridge and the converted warehouses on Clarence Street between High St and the River. Further to the right are the gates of a dry dock and I think the chimneys of Blaydes House, now the University of Hull Maritime History Institute at I High St.

*Dry Dock, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8f-62*

Swinging around a little brings a second set of dock gates into view, and this was the entrance to Hull’s first inland dock, needed as the Old Harbour on the river bank was getting far too congested. The Hull Dock company, founded in 1783 and the first of its kind, built the dock and opened it in 1788 simply as the Dock. It was built close to the site of Hull’s medieval walls and the street just to the south of the former dock is still called North Walls. The dock was renamed Queen’s Dock when Victoria visited in 1854 and all but the short section between the river and Dock Office Row was filled in in the 1930s and reopened as Queens Gardens in 1935.

*Dry Docks, Hull College, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8f-63*

The Yorkshire Dry Dock Co Ltd, Ship Builders Ship Repairers were incorporated in 1917, but there had been dry docks here much earlier as a detailed study in Paul Gibson’s Hull and East Yorkshire History relates. Hull’s Arctic Corsair, currently being restored, is expected to open to visitors at North End Shipyard in early 2025.

Lime street runs parallel with the River Hull on its east side from North Bridge to Scott Street Bridge, and then on to the busy industrial Cleveland Street, always in the 1980s one of Hull’s dustiest streets. Between Lime Street and the river were a number of wharves and many were still in use in 1989, and some businesses here still had some maritime connection.

This picture is looking south down Lime Street from its junction with Jenning Street. I turned into Jenning Street. There are some bulk storage tanks and timber storing sheds in the middle distance and three large of cranes suggesting some large redevelopment.

Back in 1989 I was still able to cross the river on Scott Street Bridge. I think Hull Council had long wanted to close this Grade II listed hydraulic double leaf bascule bridge and had deliberately failed to maintain it, allowing salt water to corrode its mechanism. Finally in 1994 they pronounced it unsafe.

It hit the national headlines in January 2018, when Banksy came to to Hull and drew a figure of a young boy brandishing a pencil for a sword called “Draw the Raised Bridge”. The council removed the Banksy in October 2019 and then demolished the bridge completely. Some noises were made by the council about replacing it with a replica, but don’t hold your breath.

*Pauls Agriculture Ltd, Wincolmlee, Hull, 1989 89-8f-42*

A man cycles down the Scott Street Bridge approach with its warning lights for bridge openind. On the other side of the long railing is Wincolmlee, the street which follows the River Hull on its west side.Two Buildings belonging to Pauls Agriculture Ltd are linked across the street by a bridge.

Pauls Agriculture was founded in Ipswich in the early 19th century initially as traders in malt and barley, but by the twentieth century there main business as in maize, which they crushed to produce vegetable oils for soap and other industrial uses with the remaining oil cake being used to produce animal feeds. In 1992 they merged with BOCM.

Much of the maize was imported, from the USA and elsewhere, so a riverside site made sense. But when transport by road took over it made more sense to site crushing mills in agricultural areas.

More to follow from Hull in August 1989 – and there are more pictures on Flickr in both black and white and colour.

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River Hull 1989

River Hull 1989: I always enjoy a walk by the River Hull and back in the 1970s-90s there was always plenty to photograph, though it is rather less interesting now. My problem then was always to drag myself away and move to a different location. If you click on any of these pictures it will take you to a larger image on Flickr and you can then move forward or backward through the whole set I’ve put on-line.

*Drypool Bridge, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-52*

Looking upstream from Drypool Bridge you can see an industrial landscape, most of which has now disappeared, as well as several vessels on the river.

*River Hull, downstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989, 89-8e-53*

Turning around and looking out towards the Humber this was the view, one that I’d taken many times in earlier years when the river had been far more crowded. At left is the disused entrance to Victoria Dock and further down the Northern Divers building, sand and gravel works, warehouses and the Myton Swing Bridge built in 1979 to take the A63 leading to Hull Docks. Before then the traffic had gone various Hull ring roads and and the decision to put it through here, splitting off the city centre from the old town was something of a disaster for the city.

Burdale H, Ranks, Clarence Mill, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-56 — *Burdalen, Ranks, Clarence Mill, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-43*

Rank’s Clarence Mill on the east bank of the river just downstream of Drypool Bridge had introduced improved methods of bulk handling, sucking up grain from barges moored at the jetty on which I was standing to make this picture.

Although the Victoria Docks had closed in 1979, the entrance to them here remained in use as the only place the River Hull was wide enough to swing vessels like this Rix coastal tanker around. It will have gone up forward to the Rix depot a little over a mile away on Wincolmlee, and then come backwards downriver on the tide until here, where it could turn and then proceed forwards to the Humber. I took a whole series of the Burdalen turning and you can see a few more on Flickr.

*Drypool Bridge, Clarence Mill, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-44*

Drypool Bridge and North Bridge are both Scherzer Rolling Bascule Bridges with a large counterweight at the left-hand end in my picture and a curved track below that which rolls on rails at ground level. Because of the counterweight relatively little force is needed to raise the bridge to allow river traffic to pass through. River traffic was heavily dependent on the tides, and the bridge always seemed to block road traffic at the most inconvenient times.

When the mill was in use the pipes at the top of the image could be lowered into the holds of the barges moored below.

*Clarence Mill, Drypool Bridge, Dry Dock, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-45*

A riverside walk led north along the east side of the River Hull, though in 1989 it was largely covered by large amounts of scrap iron at the end of the Union Dry Dock on Great Union St, Hull. The Drypool Engineering and Dry Dock Company Limited of Hull had a number of sites around the city and in Selby by went bust in 1976.

Clarence Mill, Joseph Rank’s great flour mill in Hull was rebuilt after wartime damage and was only finally closed in 2005. With the City Council’s usual disregard for Hull’s heritage it was demolished in 2015 to make way for a hotel which was never built. The site was still undeveloped in 2022.

*Pipes, Dry Dock, River Hull, Hull, 1989 89-8e-33*

More of the scrap metal which partly blocked the riverside path, including a anchor.

*Pipes, Dry Dock, Clarence Mill, Hull, 1989 89-8e-22*

And another view of the mills over the pipes at the Union Dry Dock. The closer building is the Shotwell Mill, still standing. Gamebore Cartridges makes shotgun catridges here, and should not be confused with the Hull Cartridge Company Limited who also make cartridges and sporting goods in Bontoft Ave, Hull. I’ve never owned a shotgun and certainly can’t comment on the relative merits.

As well as finding more pictures on Flickr in both black and white and colour you can also buy my 36 page Cafe Royal zine, Peter Marshall — The River Hull 1977–85, which has some of the best of my earlier images.

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Salisbury Street & Spring Bank – 1989

Salisbury Street & Spring Bank – more pictures from my walks in Hull in August 1989.

*House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-54*

During my visits to Hull until around 2000 we stayed at my parent’s-in-law’s home in Loveridge Avenue, which runs from Bricknell Road and Chanterlands Avenue and I often walked through the Avenues, and occasionally stopped to take a photograph on my way elsewhere. All the houses on this section of Salisbury Street along with thw two corner houses on Westbourne Avenue and Park Avenue are Grade II listed.

These houses, at the centre of Westbourne Park Estate, now known as The Avenues, were built shortly after the estate was begun in 1877-79, though by the time I first saw them in the 1960s most were in very poor condition and have since been restored. The listing say these Queen Anne style buildings were by George Gilbert Scott Junior for John Spyvee Cooper.

In 1974 the Architectural Review published Keep it up: George Gilbert Scott junior’s houses
by Colin Amery and Dan Cruickshank (republished in 2023) calling for Hull Council to restore these buildings which had been Grade II listed the previous year. In it the write: “several are mutilated; the houses on the corners of Westbourne Avenue and Park Street have lost their turrets and some are in deplorable condition” and they comment that they “are in one of Hull”s reluctantly created conservation areas. Hull Council still believe in the modern vision of a new city and object to paying money towards ‘gentrification’. “

*Terrace, Myrtle Villas, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-16*

Emerging from the Princes Avenue at Botanic I walked up Spring Bank towards the town centre, pausing to make this picture of one of the short terraces leading off the main road which are a feature of many streets in Hull. Myrtle Terrace is even shorter than most and over the brick wall are the back yards of the houses in Percy Cottages, Victoria Avenue, Alexandra Avenues and Beta Villas, short terraces from Mayfield Street in a remarkably dense block of late Victorian development.

Georges Bargain Centre, 178, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-62 — *George’s Bargain Centre, 178, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-62*

There is now a George’s Bargains and George’s Removals on Spring Bank, but one shop to the west at 180. Rosemount Villa at 178 was, at least in May 2022, the latest image on Google Street View, occupied by Adam Food Store. Their display of fruit and veg has replaced the household appliances on the pavement but their shop and that of Adam Hall Butcher are still the same crude front extension on two of the five late Victorian Villas in this block ending at the corner of Albany Street. Rosemount, Melrose and Leicester Villas all retain their original doorways – that of Rosemount Villa is in my photograph.

In March 2023 Historic England gave Hull City Council £11,900 to develop a regeneration plan for the Spring Bank area of the city. This is currenly out for public consultation until April 7th 2024 and you can see the extremely thorough Character Appraisal on-line.

Practical Motorist's (Hull), 167, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-63 — *Practical Motorist’s (Hull), 167, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-63*

Practical Motorist’s was on the corner of West Parade and is long gone. The conservation appraisal considers this building to be one of many “Neutral buildings. Many of these buildings could contribute positively to the Conservation Area through investment, restoration and essential repair“, but I think that the upper storeys of this and the neighbouring pawnbrokers at 165 and the side of the building along West Parade deserve a rather more positive appraisal.

The shopfront when I made this photograph was also I think much more sympathetic to the building than most, though it has since been modified. There seem to have been a number of Practical Motorist’s shops around Hull. This one is now a Russian-style sauna.

*Spring Bank Jewellers, 165, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-64*

The three balls are the traditional sign of the pawnbrokers whose notice lists some of the gold, silver or even platinum items they “urgently require” and offers a free testing service with “TOP PRICES PAID Cash!” and “All Enquiries & Dealings COURTEOUS & CONFIDENTIAL“.

The two young women peering intently into the window are casually dressed but still in in high heels. Behind them is one of Hull’s cream painted telephone boxes. The Hull Municipal Corporation set up its telephone service in 1904 and by 1913 it was the only remaining council owned telephone service, all others have been taken over the the Government. K6 boxes like this were first installed in Hull in 1936 and lack the crown on the red versions installed elsewhere across Britain. In 1987 the Hull Telephone Department became Kingston Communications (HULL) PLC. The City finally sold its shareholding in the company in 2007 and the company changed its name to KCOM Group PLC.

*Three boys, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-65*

These lads saw my camera and insisted I take their picture, which they were sure would be published in the Hull Daily Mail, though I told them it would certainly not be. Perhaps they will now see themsleves in this post 35 years later. And should the Hull Daily Mail now wish to publish any of my pictures I’d be happy to supply them at my normal NUJ recommended rates.

More from Hull in a later post. You can see more of my black and white and colour pictures from Hull on Flickr.

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Hull General Cemetery and Princes Avenue 1989

More pictures from Hull General Cemetery and Princes Avenue that I took on walks in the area in August 1989. You can see more pictures of the cemetery in 1989 at Hull General Cemetery – 1989.

Quaker Burial Ground, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-42 — *Quaker Burial Ground, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-42*

According to the article by Chris Coulson on the Friends Of Hull General Cemetery web site, the Quakers bought a 999 years lease on a 0.23 acre plot, about 55 yards by 20 yards and burials took place there from 1855 until 1974.

The graves in this plot, still there, include those of many of Hull’s leading Quaker families and include some whose family names gained international recognition for there products including members of the Reckitt family and engineer William Priestman.

The graves in the foreground of my picture have stones recording seven members of the Reckitt family and there are some others in those behind. All except one of the burials and some whose ashes were scattered here have the same simple design for their memorials.

Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-41 — *Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-41*

Back in 1989 the cemetery was home to a number of feral cats who I think scrounged for food in the bins and at the back doors of some nearby houses, though I did see (but not photograph) old women bringing scraps into the cemetery for them. The cats generally scrambled away when I approached, but I caught one clinging to the trunk of a tree.

In the background you can see a grassed largely cleared area of the cemetery, then kept mown short by the council.

Fallen Angel, Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-55 — *Fallen Angel, Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-55*

I don’t know what happened to the many headstones that the council removed from the cemetery, though when the work was taking place there were quite a few piles of them and many had been broken as much of the work was done by unskilled and poorly supervised youth labour.

Vandalism continued in the cemetery after the council had done their worst, and many of the more ornate memorials were damaged and some completely destroyed by youths who roamed at night in the unfenced cemetery.

*Dr William Atkin Thompson, Ely House, 149, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-52*

Princes Avenue was only a country lane at the start of the nineteenth century and the first significant development on it were the ornate gates of Hull General Cemetery close to Spring Bank West. A few years later the railway branch to the Hornsea and Withernsea lines was constructed with a level crossing across Spring Bank and a station, Cemetery Gates, later called Botanic, opened in 1864. Further down the road, Pearson Park, Hull’s first public park, was opened in 1862.

Dr William Atkin Thompson (1978-1961) qualified at Owens College, Manchester in 1899 and became a GP in Hull in 1907. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1914, and after the war continued in service in the army and later the Territorial Army while also practising in Hull. There is a profile of him on the RAMC in the Great War site. He was one of Hull’s most distinguished doctors, continuing to practice well past normal retirement age.

*Houses, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-65*

Princes Avenue was laid out to lead to the Westbourne Park Estate, now known as The Avenues, and opened in 1875, with the houses facing the Park at its north some of the first built on it.

*Shops, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-64*

Further south on Princes Avenue most of the development took place between 1890 and 1910, but the cemetery entrance was still on the west side at the southern end. I think these shops are on the long parade south of Welbeck Street which probably dates from around 1900, but those on the corner with Spring Bank West, which later housed one of Hull’s most internationally famous shops, Gwenap, were only added after the cemetery gates were moved to Spring Bank West.

Gwenap is said to have opened in 1903, though it was rather a different business back then and I think may have been in other premises as I think the shop the business occupied until 2013 was probably only built in the 1920s. The windows where it used to be are now of no interest.

More from Hull in August 1989 in later posts.

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Hull General Cemetery – 1989

Hull General Cemetery – I’ve long been fascinated by cemeteries and London certainly has some fine examples, though I’ve tried hard not to devote too much time to photographing them. But in many cities they provide places where you can get away from busy streets and they act as nature reserves in which you can sit and have a short rest and enjoy the variety of architecture and art in the memorials.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-35*

Hull has its share of cemeteries, at least 26, though some are long out of use and some in various ways desecrated. Those still open for burial are large and lacking in much interest though I sometimes visit particular graves there, but a number of older ones have survived at least in part, though one of those I liked to walk through, Trinity Burial Ground, was recently completely dug up.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-33*

Hull General Cemetery on Spring Bank West was opened for burials in 1847 and was described by Philip Larkin as “the most beautiful spot in Hull” and you can read more about it on the website of The Friends of Hull General Cemetery, a group only founded in 2018 and now a registered charity.

In the lengthy history of the cemetery on their site it mentions the cholera epidemic across the world which which reached Hull in 1849 which killed 3% of Hull’s population. Most of their bodies were buried in a plague pit in this cemetery and later a large obelisk was erected in their memory.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-31*

It also mentions that before the opening of Hull’s first park in 1861 “it was the only place where people could promenade without paying a fee.” For some years it was also the only place in Hull open for burials and some large and ostentatious monuments were erected in memory of the wealthier inhabitants.

Hull General Cemetery was established by a private company and later in 1862 the local authority was enabled to set up a Burial Board and create municipal cemeteries, the first of which, now the Western Cemetery, was established on land adjoining the General Cemetery to the west.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-25*

Competition with the municipal cemeteries meant the General Cemetery went into a long period of gradual decline with the company being finally wound up in 1972 and the cemetery sold to Hull City Council for £1 in 1974.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-12*

The council then set in place a controversial scheme to redevelop the cemetery by removing most of the headstones and grass the area to make it easy to maintain. Much of the work was carried out with little care by youth labour projects and it aroused considerable and widespread opposition, “including such names as Philip Larkin and John Betjeman, was overruled and the wholesale destruction of irreparable historical artefacts took place.”

A small section was kept in its previous state and those headstones which were identified as being for more notable persons were allowed to remain. Over five years the council largely turned the cemetery into a park with a few monuments and small areas of the previous cemetery, including the Friends Burial Ground.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-15*

With cuts in local authority funding the council stopped the maintenance of the area and according to the web site “The dumping of rubbish began to happen more regularly, paths became quagmires; sycamore saplings began to destroy the remaining stones whilst ivy swamped them. The entire cemetery was quickly becoming a place to avoid rather than to visit.”

As well as on the web site you can also read about the cemetery in the the book ‘Hull General Cemetery 1847 – 1972, A Short Introduction‘ also by Pete Lowden and Bill Longbone.

*Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-13*

On most of my visits to Hull from 1966 until 2018 I walked through the cemetery and the Western Cemetery from Sping Bank West close to the corner with Princes Ave to Chanterlands Ave, occasionally stopping to take a picture or two. The ones here are all from August 1989. One records the long story of John Gravill, Master Mariner which you can read above.

More to come from Hull in August 1999.

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Hull – Spurn Lightship & Spring Bank – August 1989

Hull – Spurn Lightship & Spring Bank – In August 1989 I went with my family for a week with friends in Scotland and we spent a few days staying at my wife’s family home in Hull on our way there and again on our way home.

*Spurn Lightship, Humber Dock, Hull, 1989 89-8c-35*

In the 70s and early 80s I’d photographed the city extensively and had exhibited some of this work at the Ferens Art Gallery in the city. I think most of the over 140 pictures in that show are among those I posted online during 2017 when Hull was UK City of Culture – and I added a picture each day throughout that year to my website ‘Still Occupied – A View of Hull‘ – the same title as my show and my self-published book – still available but ridiculously expensive except as a pdf.

*Spurn Lightship, Warehouses, Castle St, Humber Dock, Hull, 1989 89-8c-36*

Going back to Hull again in 1989 I was still drawn to many of the same places I had photographed in previous years, particularly the docks, the River Hull and the Old Town, and it was sometimes difficult to find anything new to say.

*Shop window, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8c-11*

All of these pictures – and many more – are in my Flickr album Hull Black and White.

*Phoenix Fitness Centre, Oderma House, 101, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8c-12*

I had taken a bus into the city centre with my family and we had gone to visit the Spurn Lightship which was moored in what was by then Humber Dock Marina. The lightship was opened here as a floating museum by Hull Council in 1983 and has recently been restored and returned to the Marina to a new berth close to the end of the Murdoch’s Connection footbridge, just a few yards west from where it was in 1989. In the top picture in this post one of my sons is looking out of the ship and to his left you can see the tower of Holy Trinity Church, now Hull Minster.

*Sunnybank Antiques, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8c-14*

The second picture taken from the lightship is looking towards the City Centre and at Warehouse 6 on the north side of Castle Street at the end of Princes Dock Street. This warehouse survived the demolitions of the 1970s and is now home to an Italian restaurant chain. I found the place excessively noisy when I ate there.

We walked back from the City centre and along Spring Bank. A shop window included the book Batman:The Killing Joke a DC Comics graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland with the Joker using, a Witz camera with a 50mm f1.8 lens – Witz is German for ‘Joke’ . There was also a poster for American rock band Kiss, who were to perform at Donington Park, Castle Donington, Derby in ten days time. They had released their fourteenth studio album Crazy Nights in September 1987.

*Houses, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-61*

The Phoenix Fitness Centre at 101 Spring Bank is now Victory Socialcare Enterprise providing accommodation for adults requiring nursing or personal care.

Sunnybank Antiques and the St John Ambulance were in Georgian houses dating from around 1820. The St John’s HQ and its attached railings were Grade II listed in 1994.

Even the drainpipes on Eastfield House/Eastfield Villas at 226-8 on the corner with Louis Street are ornate, though you cannot see these in my picture.

As these houses show Spring Bank was once one of Hull’s ‘best’ addresses, but that was long ago, and much has been lost, both by wartime bombing and later developments.

Hull – More Than The Deep: 2017

Hull – More Than The Deep: I haven’t often posted about Hull on here, but it was the city where I first carried out a serious photographic project which was shown at the city’s art gallery in 1983, and one I have continued to photograph over the years, though rather less regularly since 2000.

I didn’t really choose to photograph Hull, but I did chose to marry a woman who had grown up in the city and whose family home was still there, and it was a place where I found myself with time on my hands when visiting her parents usually for a couple of weeks most summers and often for shorter periods at Christmas or Easter.

We still have a few friends in the city, although most have now died, and our visits are less frequent. Back in 2017 Hull was enjoying its year as UK City of Culture and we were visiting partly to enjoy some of that but also to meet a few friends. I was also trying to generate some interest in my pictures of the city from the 1970s and 1980s, but plans for a show fell through.

Sunday 19th February 2017 was also a day when we met with some of our family who had come to Hull both to meet us and to visit Hull’s major tourist attraction, The Deep and we met them for lunch there and I took a few pictures from its viewing platform.

I’d gone out immediately after breakfast for a long walk around some of my favourite areas of the city which I had photographed in earlier years. Then I had been working mainly with black and white film, interested in the changes taking place in the city and surprised at the way it seemed to be disregarding much of its heritage, and recording aspects that seemed unlikely to survive. I’d also taken some colour pictures and had included some in my show there, but they perhaps more reflected my interest in colour than my interest in the city.

But in 2017 I was working only on digital, so everything was colour and I was also making some panoramic colour images – again digital.

It was late afternoon by the time we said goodbye to our family, and Linda decided she would like to go for a walk around Beverley, a town seven miles away. The bus service to there is slow and infrequent, but as I wrote “it has the advantage of setting you down at the bus station immediately next door to Nellie’s.”

Beverley is an old market town, well known for its Minster and full of old buildings. It was too late for us to visit the Minster, but not for a visit to one of its Grade II* listed buildings, The White Horse Inn, generally known as Nellies, taken over by Samuel Smith’s brewery in 1976. And although they have modernised the pub in some ways, much remains as it was – and my pictures were taken using its rather dim gas lighting. It’s a place people come from around the world to see, though fortunately not in such large numbers to swamp it.

Afterwards we still had some time before the last bus back to Hull left and went for a walk around the town including Beverley Bar, the Minster and the Monk’s Walk and I made a few pictures, all hand-held.

Back in Hull we had a walk through the town, mainly deserted at night to the house where we were staying in Victoria Dock Village, and there was time for a few more pictures.

There are many more pictures from the day on My London Diary, and many have captions too:
Beverley and Nellie’s
Around the Town
The Deep
More Hull Panoramic
Wincolmlee and Lime St

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Christmas Greetings From My Flickr Albums

Christmas Greetings From My Flickr Albums – There are only 17 pictures out of the roughly 30,000 on my Flickr account which have the tag ‘Christmas‘, and some of those are only because I’ve mentioned the festival in my description rather than for anything in the picture. Although I’ve taken many pictures of Santas on the streets of London, almost all of these have been in the last 25 years, and so far I’ve mainly put pictures from earlier times onto Flickr – mostly from 1970-1994 and mainly of London. Wishing you all a happy Christmas. But if you get too fed up with the nonsense on TV or even with family and friends there are plenty of pictures on-line to look at!

Former Cobblers, Hackney Road, Cambridge Heath, Tower Hamlets. 1983 36u-62 — *Former Cobblers, Hackney Road, Cambridge Heath, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36u-62*

I took this in 1983, looking through the window of a cobblers shop which had recently closed but still had posters with the message ‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without Pirelli’. Santa Claus wasn’t entirely the invention of Coca-Cola though his popularity and appearance owes much to their Christmas advertising from the 1930s. The article on the link to Wikipedia above has more about Santa than you will ever want to know. This year I produced a short run of poorly printed versions of this picture as Christmas cards for selected personal friends, mainly photographers. This picture is in my album London 1983 and also appears in Tower Hamlets – Black and White.

*Auto-Sparks Ltd, Electric Harness Manufacturers, Wincolmlee, Hull, 1982 33g21*

In my Hull Black and White album you can find this picture and the long description below:

An unprepossessing 20th century industrial building on or close to Wincolmlee where electrical harnesses – bundles of cables and connectors – for various makes of cars and other vehicles were made. Apparently Auto-Sparks Ltd Hull dates back to an electrical business founded by Mr Henry Colomb on Beverley Rd in the 1920s. Auto-Sparks Ltd was incorporated in April 1942 and a history page on the web site of its successor company, Autosparks reproduces the original company logo from 1954 when it was registered as a trade mark.

After the original owner and manager retired in the 1980s Auto-Sparks got into difficulties and collapsed in 1991. It was bought and moved to Sandiacre Nottingham by R D Components who were specialists in classic motorbike and car harnesses and they took over the name as Autosparks, and in 2005 became Autosparks Ltd.

This picture was taken in December, and my attention was drawn to the building by the Christmas decorations drawn on its first-floor windows. And by wondering whatever an electric harness was.
Hull Black and White

The SI unit of electric charge is of course the Coulomb, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, so this electical business founded by Mr Henry Colomb would appear to be a remarkable example of nominative determinism.

*Father Christmas, High Rd, Willesden, Brent, 1990, 90-12c-55*

In 1990 in Brent I took two Christmas pictures in 1990, one in black and white in the album 1990 London Photos of a Santa holding a number of figures and with a Harrods tag ‘£22’ standing on a box containing a caravan TV aerial kit.

Café, Christmas, Harlesden, Brent, 1990, 90c12-01b-41

The second picture from 1990 Brent was a café window in colour with Christmas decorations and an advert posted in it for flats to let in Station Road. Also in the window is a poster for Sickle Cell Awareness Day, 15th December 1990, to the left of which you can see part of me reflected as I made the image, along with reflections of a parked van and the shops and flats on the opposite side of the road. This is one of many pictures in my album 1990 London Colour.

*Christmas, Car Sales, High St, Norwood, Croydon, 1991, 91-1b-22*

From a South London used car showroom in the album 1991 London Photos is a 1987 car with its features and price described in notices on the windscreen complete with Christmas decorations. Usually when photographing interiors through windows I tried to work close to the glass and eliminate reflections so far as possible, but here I deliberately moved the black glove I was wearing to include the church across the road.

*Christmas Lights, West End, Westminster, London, 1986, 86c123-32*

In 1986 I took a few colour photographs at night around Piccadilly Circus just before Christmas which are in both 1986 Colour – London & the Thames and in Westminster – Colour 1985-92.

Pictures at night are so much easier now with digital cameras as you can work with much shorter exposures – this was probably taken on ISO400 film, while now at night I often work and get better results at 4 stops faster – the ISO6400 setting on my camera. Also being able to see what you have taken immediately makes it much easier than having to wait until the film was processed and printed.

*Eros, Christmas, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster, 1986, 86c123-43*

In the same albums and taken within a minute or two of the previous picture was this picture of Eros and the advertising display. The clock tells us that I made this at 16.06, around 15 minutes after sunset. Of course Eros isn’t really Eros, but Anteros, designed by Sir Alfred Gilbert to commemorate the philanthropic work of Lord Shaftesbury and called by him ‘The God of Selfless Love‘ – “as opposed to Eros or Cupid, the frivolous tyrant.”

But Piccadilly is a place at Christmas where some like to come and celebrate drunkenly and Anteros needs boarding up for protection and instead of seeing the fountain we see the hoardings with vintage Christmas images and greetings from The London Standard which featured Eros on its masthead.

*Christmas, Shop window, Shepherds Bush, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1988, 88c1-01-61*

Finally in 1988 in Shepherds Bush and now the first image in my album 1988 London Colour. This shop was a pet shop and the window is full of Christmas Stockings for cats and dogs and boxes of ‘Good Boy’ treats. Even the scratching post has some green ribbon attached. Along with some rather horrible artificial tree-like objects complete with blue and silver hanging balls. It seemed a particularly bleak image of the capitalist commercialisation of a religious festival.

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Hull Revisited December 2005

Hull Revisited December 2005: Usually I sit down to write these posts and tell some kind of story about the events or places that I photographed on a particular day or walk or project. And the pictures in this article were all taken on 17-19th December during a short visit to Hull.

But when I looked at them they didn’t look as you see them now, and my first thought was about the colour and quality of the 49 images that I’d posted to the web back in 2005, and rather than writing about them I decided to try and improve them a little. Going back to the original RAW images taken on a Nikon D200 would have been the best way to do this, but would have been very time-consuming and instead I simply worked on the 600×400 pixel jpeg images that I’d put on-line.

Back in 2005 the RAW conversion software available was pretty much in its infancy and often required considerable judgement to get anything like the most from the images. Using the current version of Lightroom would have enabled me to improve the images considerably.

But time was short, and instead I spent perhaps 30 seconds on each image, bringing them into Photoshop in batches and then using its auto-color and and auto curve correction on each. On a few I had to modify the auto settings, fading the correction or tweaking the curve a little, but most were done fully automatically, and the improvements in some cases were dramatic.

We’d gone to Hull mainly to celebrate the 60th birthday of an old friend, and stayed at the large and architecturally interesting home of another friend, as well as to visit my mother-in-law in her nursing home. But I found some time to get out and photograph parts of the city I’d first photographed in the 1970s and 1980s as well as find some new scenes to photograph. Here I’ll post a few of them, but you can see more on My London Diary.

A Visit To Hull – 2018

A Visit To Hull: On Thursday 26th July 2018 I took the train to Hull with my wife. She had been born there and I had visited the city many times over the years, at first staying at her family home and since that was sold around 2000 at first with a friend and more recently in hotels.

Hull was the place where I really cut my photographic teeth, producing my first extended photographic project which was exhibited at the Ferens Art Gallery there in 1983. You can see many of the pictures from the project on my web site Still Occupied… a View of Hull which I produced to celebrate Hull’s 2017 year as UK City of Culture, as well as in my earlier book of the same name, still available on Blurb where there is an extensive preview.

Rather more of my pictures are also in a couple of albums on Flickr, one of black and white and a second of colour images and there is also some more recent work, including from the 2018 visit on My London Diary.

After booking in to our city centre hotel we had time for a walk before dinner around the city centre and into the Old Town.

Hull claims to have England’s smallest window – the crack between the two stones was a lookout for coaches, and of course the Land of Green Ginger, where there is also the Second Star on the Right and Straight on ’til morning.

Hull used to mean fish, but the Cod Wars put paid to that, though there are still some reminders of the past, and still former docks in the city, though this one is now a marina. And out to the east are more modern docks, with Hull remaining a major port though now much eclipsed by Immingham and Grimsby.

Fruitful Harvest III was moored in the marina, but was built for fishing from Peterhead and later moved to Buckie. By 2018 the ship was registered in Grimsby but no longer registered for fishing, now a just a pleasure craft.

Hull has changed radically since I first visited in 1965, and this area, now called Humber Quays, was then a derelict dockland area and lorry park. Now it has modern office blocks and a memorial to the many emigrants who landed in Hull from Europe and were then mostly entrained to Liverpool to continue their journey to the USA.

Across the mouth of the River Hull is Hull’s biggest tourist attraction, the Deep, opened in 2022. It was built on Sammy’s Point which in my pictures from the 1980s was a storage area for navigation buoys, but had much earlier been a shipbuilding site. In the foreground is a recent footpath bridging across a dry dock, now full of water, still in use until fairly recently.

Our walk had been vaguely following the Larkin Trail, based around the life and work of Hull’s most famous poet – though born in Coventry he became Librarian at the University of Hull in 1955 and remained in the city until his death in 1985, writing most of his best-known poems there. After dinner in a city pub we took a bus to rejoin the trail at Pearson Park when he lived in a flat from 1956-74 – the blue plaque is just visible in the picture.

From the park we walked back into the city centre towards our hotel as light was beginning to fall along Beverley Road, passing several closed pubs, including The Rose and the Bull Hotels.

You can see more pictures from this walk and from the next few days before we left for a a short stay at one of Hull’s seaside resorts, Hornsea, in the Hull Supplement to July 2018’s My London Diary.