Spurned

This is the light of the old Spurn Point lightship, now moored up and a tourist attraction at the Marina.

Marvell of Hull

 

Andrew Marvell, MP and poet, is here positioned in front of his old school in Trinity Square. The building is now the Hands on History Museum which had we but world enough, and time, is still not worth the effort of going round.

 In 1921 Hull celebrated the tercentenary of Andrew Marvell's birth with city-wide events; I wonder if they went to the same lengths as today's motley crew with the Larkinalia. Were the streets filled with gaudily painted coy mistresses? Sadly my information on this is lacking.

Old ferry pierhead

Before the Humber bridge was built ferries ran from here to New Holland on the Lincolnshire side of the Humber. In those days there was a proper Corporation Pier  but that's all long gone. The last surviving ferry, the PS Lincoln Castle, is currently being broken up in a Grimsby dock. Humber pilots used to board from the pier but I don't think they still do.

The other side of the pier has a ramp known locally as the 'oss wash, a place for cleaning horses.

In the background looms the iconic Deep.

Arc-boutant

Arcs-boutants also known as a flying buttresses; these devices transmit the force of the ceiling through the wall to a counterweight outside the building. It means the walls can be thinner and allows more space inside the building. They were extensively used in mediaeval ecclesiastical buildings. However the ones you see here, at St Mary's, Beverley, were put up in the 1850s in a restoration job by Augustus Welby Pugin, his son E Welby Pugin, and Sir Gilbert Scott.
They fit in well and do look pretty cool with the light shining through. 

A white pair

No visit to the park would be complete without some ducks in a pond. These are the whitest ducks I've ever seen.

Menagerie Collage

When East Park was renovated they built an animal compound with a large walk-through aviary to replace an older more ramshackle affair. There's a motley collection of animals, birds and fishes though the deer that used to be in the park seem to have gone. 

East Park Model Boat Pond

The pond was designed by borough engineer Joseph Fox Sharp and opened on 21st June 1887 (Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee day). I've not seen any children sailing boats on this pond so maybe the craze for doing so has been lost since I was a little 'un.

The boat pond is still used but by much older "children" with expensive radio controlled boats that must cost a small fortune.

Lift off

Telephone Man

He's the man who fixed the wired that gets this picture from here to wherever you are. Where would we be without him?

Toad revisited

Those of you unfortunates who have never been to Hull will not have had the pleasure of encountering the local accent. This makes  phone sound like fern, home like herm and toad like....,  well I leave that to your imagination.

There are 40 of the things and I promise I will not show each one.

Door Carvings, St Mary's Beverley

These charming figures surround the doors to St Mary's. I guess they were meant keep away evil spirits and such like. I also suspect that mediaeval people were just as amsued by them as we are today, no doubt these faces were taken from local notables and as the congregation went to church each Sunday they would have a good laugh at them.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Beverley

Beverley has two nationally important mediaeval church buildings. The minster I showed you here . St Mary's church is  at the other end of the town. Originating in 1120 it has been built up, fallen down, been renovated and restored many times over the centuries.
Both Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Sir John Betjeman held that St Mary's holds very high rank among the great parish churches of England.

Now for something toadally different

They have arrived! Forty glass fibre, gaudy painted toads. At points throughout the city and even beyond these things have been deposited to amusement and bemusement. Opinion is divided between welcoming them as a bit of lively fun and seeing them a total waste of time, money and effort.
They are part of the Larkin25 todo that I mentioned some time back. Inspired by the poems Toad and Toad Revisited, they manage to make physical what is only a metaphor and in so doing illustrate the stupidity of public relations stunts. Philip Larkin used toads as an image of the drudgery of work; fitting then that one of these noxious things should be placed outside the local Jobcentre.

Round the World

The Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race ended on Saturday at Hull's Marina. Ten identical 68 foot boats were involved, each one sponsored by a city, region or country. I believe the winner was Spirit of Australia with the local boat Hull & Humber coming fourth. However; the event was less about a race than advertising the region's business development and making commercial contacts. Whether the results merited the cost of this somewhat strange way of touting for business remains to be seen.  

It was estimated that between fifty to eighty thousand  people thronged the Marina area to welcome them back and to have a good time with entertainments and food stalls and so on. 

Big Gun

This imposing old gun stands at the entrance to Hull Marina. A local diving club rescued it in 1984. It was recovered from the SS Greltoria, which was sunk on its maiden voyage in 1917 by a German submarine off Flamborough Head. The irony is that it is an anti-submarine gun. There's more about the wreck here.

Graduation Day

The young woman in the fancy gown was in a bit of a hurry; the graduation ceremony for Hull University was about to begin. Various notables got honorary degrees including Omar (Dr Zhivargo) Sharif, who claimed to have a strange attraction to Hull.  The building in the background is the Ferens Art Gallery .

The Graduation ceremony was held in the City Hall, below, that's the Lord Mayor's limo parked outside the front door.

Good luck to the Class of 2010, with 70 graduates for every job they're going to need it.

Fish and Chips

Bob Carver's  fish and chip restaurant is, depending on your sensibilities, either an institution worthy of national recognition or a public health hazard to be avoided at all costs. The Carver's have been in the frying trade for over a century, with a stall on the open market before moving to this establishment. There's a proper sit-down restaurant upstairs but most customers stand with the pigeons to be served by staff who seemingly have never heard of twentieth century health and safety rules.

Hull has some of the highest levels of obesity in the UK. It would be unfair to put the blame entirely on Carver's shop.

If you're really gripped by all this, (and who isn't ?) you can listen to Bob himself describing his life and times here.

Smile

The UK is the most watched over, snooped on and generally gawped at nation on the planet.

This pub in Cottingham is taking no chances. In Cottingham's shopping area, which is no more than two short streets, I counted at least a dozen CCTV cameras, not including the three you see here. This is by no means rare, there are millions of these spying machines up and down the land.  

Lovey Dovey

Tree Carving

When the Avenues area of Hull was built they were lined with trees which, over the years, grew and grew. Now the soil of Hull is really just glorified play-doh. Big trees and houses built on clay don't mix very well, so the big trees have got to come down and be replaced by less troublesome varieties. Rather than just removing them completely the stumps have been carved into various sculptures.  The local church is called St Cuthbert's  so I guess that explains why we have a Lindisfarne theme.

Boats

A mute swan stands in what appears to be a pile of old boats. This is the moorings at Beverley Beck.

Playtime

Low tide

Green

When the good folk of Beverley were building their town they needed stone to make foundations. They dug chalk from the area now known as Newbegin Pits. These are now a delightful overgrown woodland, wonderfully spooky in places.

Apple Glow

 

Here we see the golden glow of the apples of the Hesperides and not the sun setting over Golf Links Road.

Yorkshire Belle

Gerald (Hyde DP)   enquired the other day about the Yokshire Belle, this old boat has been taking trippers up and down the Yorkshire coast for over sixty years.

Wild thing

The protective fenders and the prominent red life savers take the edge off the "wild thing" image.

Bridlington South pier

Blue in black and white

This is borage or starflower which has delicate blue flowers and is extremely hairy.

Windows Vista

Holy Trinity Church,Hull, claims to be the largest parish church in England.

Reflection

These are outside the Hull University Business School. From their website: "The sculptures represent themes central to the field of logistics; moving matter, supply and demand, interdependence, and cause and effect, while also emphasising the importance of people within logistics and the supply chain." Also " The pairing of the two figures with these personal archetypes forms a curious drama: a metaphor for man attempting to understand his external and internal worlds." I never would have guessed.

The sculptor is Joe Hillier.

The topic of this moth's theme day is reflections.
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