More Around Popple Street – My walk on Monday 21st August 1989 continued up and down Popple Street. Popple Street still remains, but the area to the south had been changed by the building in 1979 of the Myton Swing Bridge over the River Hull and the building of the A63 Roger Millward Way which left it as a dead end. Formerly it had led to De La Pole Street and on to Great Union Street – and there is still a footpath leading to a pedestrian crossing at the roundabout on the junction with that street and the A63.
Works entrance, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-52
Popple Street is a short street leading south-east from Hedon Road and around a hundred yards down it turns at right angles toward A63 – and there are steps up to the pavement but no vehicle access. This picture is on the right-angle bend and the sheds at right are still there, the premises of Arronbrook Leisure Homes Ltd. Astablished in 1987 this company still makes static caravans and holiday homes on the site.
Almost all of the rest of the picutre has changed, except for a large shed which just peeps up above the brick wall, still there on the opposite side of Hedon Road. C B North’s saw mill has long gone, though the company remains as a timber merchants and manufacturer of root trusses on the Hedon Road, but the other sheds there were demolished around 2020.
C M Railton & Son, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-53
There was another photograph of C M Railton & Sons building in my previous post, I think taken from the footpath which replaced De La Pole St, but here I show it actually a little further down Popple Street looking towards Hedon Road. As I noted in the the previous post the site is now occupied by a medical supplies company, but this rather attractive building has been demolished and replaced by a larger but bland warehouse of First Aid Supplies
Works, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-54
Walking towards Hedon Road I made this picture of the buildings at the left of the previous view which are still on the street as Selles Medical Goods Inwards. They have lost those pulleys for lifting goods in to the upper floor and the doorways there are now large windows, while the large ground floor window and wall below is now a wide metal-shuttered entrance to the building. The door at right is still there but also with a metal shutter.
Robbies Pub was Grade II listed five years after I made this photograph, and the listing text begins “Formerly known as: Victoria Hotel HEDON ROAD. Public house. c1850, altered c1875 and later C19.” A fairly lengthy description follows. This picture shows some of the fine detail which justifies its listing.
This used to be a popular pub for Hull’s dockers and was known by them as the ‘Monkey House’. Probably the name came from J. F. Mitchell’s “That’s The Way To The Zoo” written in 1883 which includes the verse: ‘That’s the way to the zoo! That’s the way to the zoo! The monkey house is nearly full But there’s room enough for you.’ This became both a skipping rhyme for girls and a popular insult.
The picture also shows the view down Popple Street with the former building of N R Burnett Ltd, still a Hull timber merchant but now in West Carr Lane. I’d photographed this view from the opposite side of the road in 1985, and the caption to that photograph has more about the company: “N R Burnett is a timber company founded in Hull in 1935 by Norman Rutherford Burnett and became a private limited company in 1941. During the war it was based in York, but returned to Hull in 1945, and was based at the Albert Mill here in Popple St until 1960 when it moved to larger premises in Great Union St. It was one of the first suppliers for caravan builders. They still operate from sites in Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Hull and Ossett as an importer and merchant of panel products, softwood and hardwood timbers.”
C B North, Hedon Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-56
On Hedon Road I photographed the offices for C B North as well as the end of the yard stretching from Popple Street of Arronbrook Lt, Mobile Home Manufacturers. The C B North building, across the road from their saw mill, became home to Paragon Joinery and Soper Plastics who relocated and the building was demolished around 2013. I rather liked the two rows of glass bricks inserted in the side wall, one at an angle presumably lighting a stairway. The building was on the corner of the what was I think the entrance to a saw mill (and earlier also a coal wharf) and is now one of the entrances to the South Orbital Trading Park.
Kenfig, Hedon Sand & River Hull – these pictures I made on Monday 21st August 1989 on a short section of the River Hull. I had hoped to walk along the footpath beside the river between Drypool Bridge and North Bridge.
Boats, River Hull, downstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-35
The small tug Felix-Tow has got around a bit since it was built in the Netherlands in 1955. After working in Rotterdam the Ijssel came to Felixtowe in 1967 where it was renamed FELIX-TOW. I think it was fairly new to Hull where it was owned by Dean’s Tugs Ltd – and was still in service in 2008 – perhaps still now.
Boats, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-36
The vessel in the foreground is a coastal tanker belonging to the Hull based petroleum company RIX which still operates a fleet of coastal oil tankers, estuarial barges and crew transfer vehicles. Rix have oil storage tanks around a mile further up the river.
The company, as their web site relates, began in 1873 when Robert Rix, a sea Captain and Merchant Adventurer working in Hull set up in business building small coastal craft on the south bank of the River Tees in Stockton. In the 1900s the company bought steam ships and began operating them. The move into petroleum products came in 1927 when they began importing tractor vaporising oil and Lamp oil, packed in oak casks on their ships from Russia to the Humber.
The company expanded rapidly after the end of World War Two, supplying agricultural and commercial diesel across Yorkshire and opening petrol filling stations around Hull. The company has continued to grow and expand into new areas.
Vessels, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-21
Barges like these in the middle of the picture were once very common, and were often moored three or four abreast in the Old Harbour downstream of Drypool Bridge, but by 1989 were becoming much less common, though some are still in use. Others have been converted to houseboats.
Barges like this might carry as much as 24 large lorries and could transfer goods from the docks to river wharves at much lower costs than road transport, with much lower pollution and carbon footprint. But of course they could only take goods to sites on navigable rivers and canals and so are much less flexible than road transport.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-22
Hedon Sand, IMO 5185875 was a Grab Hopper Dredger built in 1954 close to Hull at Richard Dunston’s Hessle Yard. The ship had gross tonnage 677 tons, deadweight 813 tons and was around 50 metres long with a breadth of 10 meters. An 8 cylinder four-stroke msrine Ruston & Hornsby engine give it a top speed of 9 knots.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-23
Known for most of its active life as Kenfig, it had been built for the British Transport Commission and was transfered to the British Transport Docks Board in Cardiff in 1963. It returned to the Humber and was used in dredging the Humber Dock Basin when Humber Dock was being converted to the Marina.
Mud is always a problem in the Humber and in the River Hull and I think dredging was always needed when the River Hull was still a commercial river. In recent years there seems to be far more mud in the river close to the mouth than I remember.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-24
Kenfig was sold to Jones & Bailey Contractors Ltd, Hull in 1983 – they also owned another dredger, Grassendale and they renamed it Hedon Sand. In 1989 when I took these pictures the vessel was sold to be broken up in Hull.
River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-25
I think some at least of these massive wooden beams had probably once supported parts of the riverside path I had hoped to walk.
Kenfig, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-26
Ahead of me I could see North Bridge but with extensive work taking place on the riverbank there was no way I could continue to walk along it and I had to retrace my steps to Drypool Bridge
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-12
On my way I took another picture of Hedon Sand before walking up to the road and going on into East Hull – where I took more pictures. More later.
Treasure, Fresh Meat, Rose Villa… has some more pictures on Beverley Road, from where I walked into Pearson Park andthrough the Avenues back to my parents-in-law’s home.
Treasure Chest at 220 Beverley Road had closed and was to let, but its frontage contained messages at various levels, including an ‘OPEN’ sign on the door. the shop is still there, one in a row of shops on the east side of the road going north from Temple Street, and in 2022 was occupied by ‘Edward Scissor Barbers’. It had gone through a number of changes since 1989, including ‘£1PLUS’, a Polish Butcher, a Unisex Hair Salon and doubtless more.
I’m not sure what Treasure Chest had offered, though previously it appeared to be possibly a secondhand furniture shop offering to carry out home clearances. The windows were flyposted, with ‘Can Gorbachev reform Russia‘, a meeting at the New White Harte and an SWP ‘Troops out Now‘ protest in London (I think out of Ireland.)
But more mystifying were the two carefully printed ‘SIMPLE MINDS‘ at the top of each window. Were these for the Glasgow rock band?
Fresh Meat, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8n-65
Another mystery door behind a wire screen protecting the frontage. It advertises ‘FRESH MEAT’ but with pictures of what I thought was a hamster and some kind of tropical fish. On the door an invitation to ‘JOIN OUR CHRISTMAS CLUB’ has been posted on top of another advertising a holiday play scheme at Kingston Community Centre – what I first took to be a pile of bodies is actually a rather sinister clown whose cap offers ‘TONS OF FUN’.
This picture was taken on Sunday 20th August 1989 and the shop was closed, but otherwise I’m sure it was still in use.
Rose Villa, 269-71, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8n-66
Rose Villa, now a nursing home, is on the west side of Beverley Rd on its corner with Pearson Park, facing the Dorchester Hotel. The Beverley Road Heritage Trail leaflet states:
“Rose Villa is now a care home but was originally Claremont Villa, the home of coal and wool merchant William Croft. His business partner Henry Croft lived just across the road at the Dorchester Hotel, which at the time was three houses: Dorchester House, Tamworth Lodge and Stanley House.
The buildings are notable for their fanciful shaped gables and turrets, built by Bellamy and Hardy in 1861-2. Other occupiers here have included ship owners, timber merchants, and popular local grocer William Cussons.”
The Dorchester Hotel was at one time owned by one of my wife’s relatives, though I never went there.
Pearson Park, Archway, Pearson Ave, Hull, 1989 89-8n-51
This Grade II listed gateway to Pearson Park was made by Young & Wood of Hull and is cast-iron in a Classical Revival style.
Pearson Park was Hull’s first public park, laid out on land given to the Corporation by Zacharia Pearson, Mayor of Hull in 1860. Pearson was sent to school by his uncle after this mother died, and ran away to sea when his was 12, but was sent back to complete his sentence at Hull Grammar. He went back to sea on leaving school and rapidly progressed to becoming a captain and then a ship owner. With his brother-in-law he founded Pearson, Coleman & Co shipping timber from the Baltic and freight and later passengers to America – and later Australia and New Zealand.
Pearson became mayor in 1859 and donated liberally to various charities in Hull as well as giving the land for Pearson Park. But in the 1860s several of his business affairs went disastrously wrong. His worst mistake came with the US Civil War where he tried to keep Hull’s cotton mills in work by sending ten ships to try to break the blocade and all ten and their cargoes were lost. His bankruptcy was for a spectacular £646,000 – something like £63m now allowing for inflation – and he was ostracised from civic life in the Hull.
Pearson Park, Archway, Pearson Ave, Hull, 1989 89-8n-52
Despite his spectacular removal from Hull society, Pearson Park retains his name, and Pearson is still among the great philanthropists of Hull. This archway seemed in fairly good condition when I made these two pictures in 1989 , but had long lost both its gates and the maritime themed decorations and urns which had stood on top of the arch and a few large cracks can be seen at the top of the arch.
The archway was returned to its original grandeur by restoration specialists Lost Art in 2019 in an extensive project. It is now also stronger to be more resilient to the extra weight of modern traffic.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-53
I walked through the park and crossed Princes Avenue to walk down Park Avenue. You can see in this picture the poor condition back in 1989 of these grand houses close to the corner with Salisbury Street. I think this was 109 Park Avenue, but there is a virtually identical house in Salisbury St.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-55
This group of eight Grade II listed houses are thought to be the only remaining examples of domestic buildings by George Gilbert Scott Junior, an early exponent of the Queen Anne style.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-54
Some of these houses had already been restored as this view shows. All now look in good condition.
This was the last picture I took on this walk on Sunday 20th August 1989, but I was back in the centre of Hull taking pictures the following day – which I’ll post shortly.
Binnington seems to be a relatively common family name in parts of Yorkshire, though not one I’d come across before elsewhere. It’s hard to read the street number but I think it is 323, one of a short run of shops between the railway bridge and De Grey St on the west side of Beverley Rd.
I hadn’t come across many shops that were both hairdressers and tobacconists, though I think there may have been a couple of others in Hull. I wasn’t sure whether the CLOSED notice in the window was merely out of opening hours or more permanent.
Newland United Reformed Church, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-13
Newland United Reformed Church was on the corner of Beverley Road and Brooklyn Street but was sold in 2012 and demolished. Nothing had been built on the site by May 2022.
There had been a church here, Hope Street Congregational Church since 1797. In 1903 it had been replaced by Newland Congregational Church, a simplified Gothic brick church designed by Moulds and Porritt in red and yellow brick with terracotta dressings which was demolished in 1969. Presumably it was then replaced with this simpler structure – Newland United Reformed Church from 1972.
May Street runs east from Beverley Rd, and Mayfair Unisex Salon was on its northern corner with Beverley Rd. As well as the obvious attraction for me of the male and female silhouettes for the ‘SUPPLIERS OF N.H.S WIGS GREAT SELECTION’. But also a face peers down from the upper window.
Hills, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-15
Not only Mayfair, Hull also had (and still has) its Park Lane, though the lane now looks very different with no trace of Hills or any of its buildings.
The corner is now occupied by a building with a brickwork panel showing a junk and some Chinese characters and was built by the Hon Lok Senior Association along with ten houses and ten bungalows in Park Lane.
Hills, Office, Park Lane, Bull Inn, pub, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-16
Thomas Hill Engineering Co. (Hull) Ltd had offices on the corner of their site on Park Lane opposite the Bull Inn. I’m not sure what kind of thinks they engineered but apparently in 1977 they were granted US Patent 4031764 on ‘Devices for “rotating articles in which the disadvantages of existing devices are minimized, and in which the containers are kept in line.”
Stepney Chapel is still on the corner of Cave Street and Beverley Road, but now looks in a very sorry state, around ten years or more since there were last services at Glad Tidings Hall (Pentecostal). The Chapel was built in 1849 when Stepney was still a small village as a Methodist New Connexion Chapel, but was replaced in 1869 by a much larger and grander Gothic church with seating for 600. This closed in 1966 and was demolished with a supermarket now on its site.
The Methodist New Connexion began in Sheffield in 1797 by secession from the Wesleyan Methodists led by Alexander Kilham and William Thom and grew rapidly. Accused of having sympathies with Tom Paine and the French Revolution it gave greater power to the lay member of the churches than the minister dominated Wesleyan Methodists. It grew rapidly paricularly across the north of England, though in the 20th century the various Methodist groupings re-united. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was ordained as a Methodist New Connexion Minister in 1858.
As my picture shows clearly, the chapel is aligned to Cave St rather than Beverley Rd.
Scott St Chapel and Beverley Rd: More pictures I made in Hull in August 1989 before and after a week with family and friends in Scotland.
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43
This building was on the corner of Scott Street and Carr St, a short street that ended at the Cottingham Drain.
It was builtaround 1803/4 as a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, one of the first in Hull, and the first in the then fast growing area of Sculcoates and had seating for 531 worshippers. The plain brick was coated with stucco some time in the mid 19th century and the building is mentioned in the Hull pages of Pevsner. Later the population of Sculcoates fell as the area became more industrial and new Methodist churches opened elsewhere in Hull. By 1910 the chapel became a printing works, still in use by Mason and Jackson Ltd until 1997 – you can read more details and see pictures in Paul Gibson’s Hull & East Yorkshire History. Sadly efforts by Gibson and others to get this buidling listed were refused and it was bought and demolished to provide more lorry parking for Maizcor in 2001.
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43
This had been the front entrance to the chapel on Scott Street.
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Carr St, Scott St, Hull, 1989
A view across Scott Street shows the Carr Street side of the building. Listing was denied on the that the building has been ‘too altered to qualify’, but I think this picture shows that the alterations were only superficial. Paul Gibson’s pictures show that many of the interior features remained. This wasn’t a great building, but a fine example of its type and one of the oldest remaining buildings in the Sculcoates area of Hull. As my picture shows it stood out from the other later buildings on the street some of which still survive.
Gatepost, Royal British Legion, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-31
There is an interesting block of 3 houses on Beverley Road immediately north of College Street, and it was that street name which gave me the clue tothe origin of this post, which dates from 1836 when Kingston College was built by Hull’s leading early Victorian architect Henry Francis Lockwood. The college was built just a little to the north and set back from the road and a few yards to the north two more pillars lake this do form a gateway to what is now Kingston Youth centre. The college didn’t last long closing in 1847 and its building was bought and turned into almshouses by Trinity House in 1851. At some time it became the Kingston Youth Centre and was badly mauled and had a sports centre added.
When the two houses at 46-48 were added inside the grounds of the college (then owned by Trinity House) in the 1860s I imagine this pillar was kept but its peer removed. This pillar is stuck rather oddly into the corner of the front yard of No 46, which is perhaps why it is in better shape than the two along the road.
The British Legion are no longer at Kingston Cottage at 44 Beverley Road, which is only locally listed. Also by Lockwood it was built as the Kingston College Lodge. As one of his earliest works it should be listed – at the moment it only has local listing. The college has been so much altered that it would be hard to make out a case for its retention in the lottery funded schemes to rejuvenate the area.
This grand Grade II listed Victorian style pub at 246 Beverley Road is not quite as old as it looks and was built in 1903 in red brick and terracotta designs of architects Freeman, Son & Gaskell to replace an earlier Bull Inn that had been on the site for around a hundred years. It closed around 2010, briefly reopened in 2011 and was converted to flats in 2017. I chose an angle for the picture which left the fine bull outlined on the shadow side of the more austere building on the opposite side of Stepney Lane, Stepney Board School.
Stepney Board School, built in 1886, architect W Botterill is also Grade II listed. Its Queen Anne style lacks the exuberance of the pub which had to attract customers while the school had school attendance officers to keep its numbers up.
Reynoldson St, Hull, 1989 89-8m-26
I think you were never far from a boat in Hull, but relatively few parked theirs outside the front door. I couldn’t remember exactly where I made this, but the next few frames I took were all on or just off Beverley Rd. Fortunately when I posted it on Hull: The good old days on Facebook, I got over 30 replies in the next hour telling me.
I kept only very brief notes while I was taking pictures feeling it a getting in the way of my creative processes. Often I’d done considerable research before going out to take pictures and had a good idea of what I would take photographs of, but there were always other things like this that caught my attention. Usually I could remember something about the when I’d developed the film and made the initial contact print, but not this time.
Still some more pictures from Hull before I returned to London.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
A short distance down Spencer Road I turned right into Elsynge Road, a street full of large mainly semi-detached Victorian houses. It got its current name only in 1937, when Park Road was renamed to distinguish it from other Park Roads in London, including one not far away close to Battersea Park.
Local legend has it that some of the houses in this and Spencer Road were built for the Great Exibition of 1851, but in fact development only began in the area a little later, with the first houses in Spencer Road appearing in 1853-7 and in Park Road in 1856-7. Most were built in the 1860s with a handful of later additions.
The area draft Conservation Appraisal Document notes “Nos.9-11 and 13 are of particular interest, being of three and a half storeys with rustication to the lower storeys, canted bays, and projecting porches supported by Corinthian columns. Dentil cornices and decorative architraves to windows add richness of detail.”
As for the name of the house it could refer to one of the various Earl Stanhopes several of whom were prominent Tory politicians, one of the two English and one Scottish villages of that name, or be simply the family name of the residents.
House, Elsynge Rd, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-41
The draft Survey of London tells us that the area was initially called the Clapham Station Estate, named after a short-lived station on the line to the east of the area, not Clapham Junction which was only built in 1863.
Number 33 and 35 are rather plainer houses in the street but still large with a basement and three floors above. 35 is unusual for being one of few detached houses in the street and its current valuation is over £4 million. Both were build by the same builder, Richard Down a joiner from Princes Street, Westminster around 1863.
There are six of these large pillars in front of the impressive edifice Elsynge Mansions at 19-23 Elsynge Rd. The Survey of London suggests that this was built as a semi-detached property and converted into flats by the 1890s, a date when the building of mansions was becoming common across London.
Its name will have come from the Tudor Elsynge (or Elsyng) Palace in Enfield which had been used as a hunting lodge by Henry VIII but was part demolished in 1608 and completly not long after; it later became part of the Forty Hall estate. Its exact location had been lost until redicovered from 1960 on by the Enfield Archaeological Society. And clearly it was this name – in some elegant tiling on its front path – which led to the new name for Park Road.
Services Rendered Club (Battersea) Ltd, 4 North Side, Wandsworth Common, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-31
At the west end of Elsynge Road I turned into Marcilly Road, photographing a house there (not yet digitised) and walked down to the South Ciercular Road on the north side of Wandsworth Common. These buildings are still there at 4 North Side and are now home to Bright Horizons Day Nursery and Preschool.
There are still a number of Services Rendered Clubs in the UK and I think most of them were formed in or immediately after the Great War particularly for ex-servicemen who had been honourably discharged after becoming permanently unfit to serve. They were awarded the Silver War Medal, also known as the ‘Services Rendered Badge’, a lapel badge designed to be worn on civilian clothing. During the war this would have protected them from being harassed to serve ‘King and Country’. Most also got a printed King’s Certificate of Discharge.
According to the survey of London this was the coachhouse for Devon Villa, “designed by G.H. Page for G. H. Swonnell, maltster, and built in 1861, probably by George Bass“. The former Servicemen’s Club was converted into the nursery and 7 flats in 2005-6..
Pistons, 99, St John’s Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-33
I walked up Strathblaine Rd and Sangora Rd but took no more pictures until I turned into St John’s Hill where Pistons, a shop appearing to sell accessories for motorists including numberplates, warning triangles and superglue with a rather phallic sign caught my eye.
The shopfront is still there but for some years this was a furniture shop, ‘inform’ selling Scandinavian designs but the shop here was recently advertised for rent. The advert dated the shop as 1900 but it was built as part of the Strathblaine area development around 1882-6. Never believe what estate agents say.
I took a short detour down Strath Terrace, across the railway bridge and down Boutflower Road. Henry Boutflower Verdon was the first vicar-designate of St Mark’s, Battersea Rise and was much loved in the area by the time he died at the age of 32 in 1879.
A curate under Canon J. Erskine Clarke, Vicar of St. Mary’s Batersea, Verdon was to become Vicar of St Mark’s which was then being transformed from a tin tabernacle a Victorian Gothic church by William White, now Grade II* listed. The new church was dedicated as a memorial to him and Philip Cazenove, a local benefactor who had paid for the building of the church school.
Boutflower’s name was given to the road when Alfred Heaver developed what he called the St John’s Park estate in 1885–9. Heaver must have had a huge production line making these faces in the picture to be spread liberally across the estate. Probably he made a nice profit selling them to the builders.
It was time to end this walk and make my way to Clapham Junction for the train home. It was August and I was shortly off on my travels to Hull, where my next frame was taken and later on to a week in Scotland. So my next walks were rather different.
I turned south from York Road into Petergate and turned int Eltringham Street where I think I took this picture of the Charterhouse Works. It’s hard to read the peeling paint of the notice on the side, but I think these were once the works of Sandle Brothers, Manufacturing Stationers, Wholesale & Export with City Offices & Showroom at 4 Snow Hill EC4. You can see more about them on Spitalfields Life.
There appears to be a very long list of current occupants on the front of the building and on the full size image I can make out some of the names of what appear to be small businesses with workshops or offices in the building.
I think this is now the site of Charterhouse Appartments at 21 Eltringham St, a large modern block.
I made my way through the back streets to Plough Road, probably going along the footpath beside the railway line, Tours Passage. On the way I passed a heap of black sacks of rubbish with horse that had come from a fair roundabout, which I photographed but have not yet digitised.
Going under a railway bridge and walking down the road took me opposite the works of Nicholson & Co Ltd at 115-7 Plough Road, Heating – Ventilating – Air Conditioning Engineers established in 1904. Next door at 119 is a rather more ornate building with the date 1902 in its gable. The 2013 Survey of London tells me this was a former diary “designed by William Clinch Poole for the Dairy Supply Company Ltd.”
Plough Road School is Grade II listed as Highview Primary School and was built in 1889-90 (the date 1890 appears on it though not in my picture) designed for the London School Board by its architect T J Bailey who was proud of his work and exbibted the designs at the Royal Academy in 1891.
My view is of the back of the building, probably because much of the rest was covered by scaffolding when I made it, but perhaps becuase I thought the architectural influence was more evident. At the right of my picture is a little of the schoolkeeper’s house built at the same time.
St Pauls, Church, Community Centre, Vardens Rd, St John’s Hill, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-54
At the bottom of Plough Road I turned right into St John’s Hill and took this picture of St Paul’s Church from the corner of Vardens Road, I think to contrast the slender spire with the pillars of the corner doorway of 129 St John’s Hill. This block, shops with flats above has a rather more delicate entrance to the flats, Harvard Mansions, on Vardens Road. Those pillars seemed unusual in that they clearly were not supporting anything – with a top looking like a chimney. The block was built in the late 1890s in an Arts and Crafts style.
Although this is on St John’s Hill it was built in 1868 as St Paul’s church, as a part of the parish of St John’s Battersea which was on Usk Road. It was needed to accommodate the growing number of worshippers in the area which was beginning to expand rapidly. Later numbers fell and St John’s closed in 1950. This church became part of the parish of St. Peter & St Paul Battersea. Chad Varah who founded the Samaritans was its vicar from 1949-53.
Designed by H E Coe this Victorian Gothic church was build in a Decorated style using Kentish ragstone. Despite some on-line statements it appears to be only locally listed. When I made this picture it was in use as a community centre for the local residents association and as a nursery and it seems only to have been formally de-consecrated in 2013 to allow parts to be converted to flats.
I walked west to the next turning on St John’s Hill and went down Spencer Road where a short distance down I found these splendid Victorian villas. Much of the housing in the road is interesting but I was particularly interested in these for their combination of Victorian Gothic and Dutch gables.
Spencer Road presumably gets its name from the various Spencers who were Lords of the Manor in this area. The street was laid out before 1871 but was developed piecemeal and these houses are I think probably a little later.
