Queen's Gardens: Back to the Future

I mentioned a few days ago that the collective insanity known as Hull City Council had proposed a series of makeovers for the city centre, at the time I said that I thought they weren't too bad. Well I think I spoke in haste because on closer examination some of the proposals are borderline bonkers. Take, for example, the proposal to reinstate Queen's Gardens as it was planned in the 1920's. Let's be clear this would be an act of pure vandalism. Queen's Gardens is now a place of mature trees and tranquil ponds with pleasing fountains. In the 30's the place looked like a desert with immature trees, boring planted borders and no ponds (see here and here). Is the Council really proposing to remove mature trees and fill in ponds? To top off this lunacy there's the creamy delish proposal to build a retractable stage over the duck pond at the far end, this is to stage 'events' and lies alongside yet another proposed stage to commemorate Mick Ronson, a guitarist with the eminently forgettable Spiders from Mars or so I'm told (this presumably would stage non-events). Very 1920's I must say! So there you have it, vandalism mixed with tawdry tackiness, about par for HCC.

Queen's Gardens is one of the few places in Hull that doesn't need fixing, so kindly leave it alone.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.
Weekend Reflections can be found here.

Memorial Gate

This little oddity, an alley gate as a memorial, on Mayfield has me puzzled. Somebody out there will know something about it I'm sure.

Pauline Gift's Shop

If you peer closely you can still make out the name Pauline gently fading with the passing years. That would be Pauline Gift, who died two years ago. She ran this shop on Princes Avenue for over 20 years and other shops before that. You see I have a problem with this; when she died they kind of made out she was some sort of eccentric legend, they even made a play about her. Now she seemed pretty ordinary to me, shuffling her stock on a bicycle down Prinny Ave seemed normal to me anyways, she was just a nice lady. And this will always be Pauline's Gift Shop.

Film Set

Back in May the streets of the town were taken over and transformed in the streets of 1945 London. The reason was the filming of some  no doubt truly dreadful film about the antics of our own dear queen on VE day/night,  Girl's Night Out is the name of this cinematic delight. Anyhow parts of the town received WW2 makeover with anti-blast tapes stuck to windows. Now whether these windows near Holy Trinity Church were part of the show and were simply forgotten or somebody was simply joining in the zeitgeist I don't know but they were like this long after the show had packed up and left town.

Barber's Shop Trio

Something I noticed the other day is just how many barbers there are on Spring Bank, must be about half a dozen. Now I've not set foot in a barber shop for over twenty five, nearer thirty, years so I can give no appraisal of their services. Anyhow in no particular order and for no particular reason here are a bunch of three. 

Fool, money, soon parted ....

There's this pay-per-view telescope down by the riverside and I've never seen anyone using it. So I thought I'd give it a go and put in my 20p. Well I guess I should have known better. It doesn't work. Now I know why no-one uses it ...

Tenfoot of Trouble

Amid claims that the Avenues area is becoming like "a New York ghetto" a row is simmering about plans to put gates on the tenfoots^*. A fine fellow with no concept of the absurd is seeking to have these passage ways declared restricted byways which would mean that they have be open to anyone and indeed cars would not be able to use them as an ancient bylaw insists that only people on foot or on horseback can use them. I love these little local difficulties they provide whole minutes fun on a dull day. Meanwhile the graffitistas and fly-tippers do their worst. This garbage (or is it trash?) lurks off Westbourne Avenue. My apologies to any New York ghettos who feel offended.

^*A tenfoot for those of you who don't come from these parts is an alley way between and behind houses that allows access to the rear of properties. They are about ten feet wide in case you were wondering.

The old weekend in black & white has come round again; it's here.

Underfoot

Not, as you might think, a picture of the last thing some unfortunate Lilliputian saw as Gulliver bestrode the earth like a colossus but a mere advertisement for the services of a quack, oh sorry, no, erm, a chiropractor. This one on Wednesday Market in Beverley. Despite there being little or no evidence that joint snappers do any good at all and may even do considerable harm, they seem to be thriving in Beverley as there's another one on Railway Street with this charming fellow in the window.

Sharp Street Roll of Honour

Two years after being removed to make way for the demolition of Goodfellows supermarket the Roll of Honour has been restored. Actually it was restored in March but I've only just noticed it. There's a plaque to show a bishop blessed it, the Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire (the what now?) and a host of Council knobs turned up to be seen to be there. The supermarket was pulled down to make way for much needed new housing but since I posted about it not a single brick has been laid nor even the ground broken up, nothing, ... the mills of planning grind slowly, they grind exceeding small, with impatience we're still waiting, no doubt they'll grind us all.

Standing room only

Plans have been published for a £25 million revamp of the city centre. On the whole they don't look too bad, a few gripes here and there about minor details but, there is one major fault that screams out from the picture shown. There are practically no seats, nowhere to sit and admire the grand works. Seems this no seats policy is part of a worrying trend.
Back in December 2012 I posted about plans to develop an outdoor café area near the War Memorial on Ferensway.  Well it's up and running and looking every bit as tatty as I imagined. The price paid for all those cuppucinni al fresco is that there are now no seats for members of the public to rest their weary backsides on. Even the seats by the memorial have been removed. If you want to sit down near here you've got to be a paying customer. 

Thanks to marvells of Google Street View or whatever it's called here's what this place looked like before it was cleared to make way for the cafe culture. Clearly we can't have people just sitting around and not paying; what's the fun in that? Mind you it appears that the very thought of sitting down and thinking for a short while is so horrific for some that they would rather give themselves an electric shock so maybe removing the seats eases their stress.... but planners please bear in mind some people do like to sit and admire the view.

Copyright Google, so sue me!

Noctilucent Clouds

I suppose if you don't go to bed early you'll sooner or later start seeing things even rare noctilucent clouds. This was around 3.10am on July 7. Seems there's been a spate of these over Europe this past week, must be something in the air.

One law for them and another one for you

South Street

Well if you parked your car here on these double yellow lines you'd expect the passing traffic warden (now tweely called a Civil Enforcement Officer or CEO in the jargon) to write you out a ticket for illegal parking. But this bright fellow just walks straight past this vehicle. Could it be that Hull City Council can park where it likes and damn the rest of you? Seems that way...

...and the irony of a CCTV van designed to spot wrong doing being parked illegally... but that's Hull City Council for you, a law unto itself; well it does employ the traffic wardens so it would have to fine itself. It's all done by smoke and mirrors.

Clearout

Whitefriargate

I think it's clear that Clearout has cleared out.

Jack Kaye Walk

Jack Kaye Walk connects Ella Street and Goddard Avenue. If this bridge or tunnel looks a bit odd for a footpath that's because originally the Cottingham Drain ran through here until it was culverted and turned into a  path. This place used to attract the graffiti artists and that was frowned upon now it's been 'decorated' by a 'community' group and that's OK. Jack Kaye ran a shop on Ella Street that has since been pulled down and is now housing. There's a plaque that reads "Jack Kaye, Epicurean Grocer served the Avenues area 365 days a year from this shop here 1947 to 1998" seems a bit OTT for a corner shop proprietor but maybe he was special.

Deserted

At the end of Middleton Street this small play area was clearly not the place to be.

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Percy Cottages

What we have here is the housing equivalent of putting a quart into a pint pot. Instead of just building a straight row of terraced houses our greedy little Victorian builder has missed out every third house and squeezed in another terrace between the rows. So now there are eight houses where one would have been. This was fairly common practice in Hull and elsewhere I guess. These little off shoots were often given  names like Percy Cottages in this case, there's a Minnie's Grove further along and I've seen an Annie's Grove as well, often however they're given somewhat ridiculous names such as Victoria Avenue which is next to old Percy here on Mayfield Street. I once lived in a similar place to this (Willow Grove off Alexandra Road, long ago demolished) and these houses are teeny, damp and squalid, how a family with children was expected to thrive in them I cannot imagine but many generations have and continue so to do. In fairness Mayfield Street is exceptional in that there has been no redevelopment, the neighbouring Middleton Street which was very similar to this has been modernised and these hutches demolished.

And tell me what street compares with Hutt Street in July?

Running off Spring Bank, Hutt Street is one of those mid 19th century rows of terraced houses built to accommodate the booming population of Hull. The street is named after Sir William Hutt  MP for the city. Looking into Mr Hutt online I find that, yes, it is agreed he was MP from 1832 to 1837 when according to the internet he was defeated by William Wilberforce. Now you've all heard of William Wilberforce haven't you? Abolished slave trade and all that, died in 1833, whoops hold on a minute, died in 1833? How did the dead William defeat the very much alive William four years after dying? I don't know but the said Wilberforce was unseated by petition (not exorcism?) in 1838, maybe they couldn't stand the smell. Surviving this encounter with the spectral Wilberforce Mr Hutt went on to become MP for Gateshead and served under both Palmerston and Russell. Hull has Hutt Street but New Zealand has Hutt City (upper and lower) along with the Hutt river,  not to be outdone South Australia has a Hutt river as well.

At this point I'd like to thank Wikipedia and those who clearly cut and paste from this excellent source for inspiring such trust in the collective effort to make history more interesting.

Callooh! Callay! It's Cottingham Day!

A part of me thinks they hold this in July just celebrate the students having gone home for the Summer but I must banish such thoughts. This isn't just some local day for local people. Everyone's welcome except maybe the riff-raff from Orchard Park. So make a note in your hectic social diary ...

Over at City Daily Photo they are 'Celebrating Summer' for some reason and not without cries of foul from those south of the Equator who are relishing their Winter, lucky them. You can see what 'Celebrating Summer' looks like here.

Thin red line

A few years back, when they were digging the Hull hole and generally tidying up the area around Princes Dock someone had the bright idea of outlining the old city walls (see the blog's title picture for an idea of what these looked like) in red bricks which explains these lines, squares and circular markings by the dockside.

Posterngate

That big old "Thank You, Hull" party

They seemed to be packing a whole year's worth of 'culture' into one afternoon in Hull yesterday. The day started with the Lord mayor's parade complete with a fly past of some WW2 planes which I saw from two miles away while getting my newspapers, those three planes made one hell of a racket, no stealth bombers back then.

I wouldn't normally attend things like this but I had to go into town for stuff anyway so I had a little look-see. I only stayed for an hour and missed most of the goodies on offer including a "Larkin Toads performance" (I bet that was fun). Here in no particular order are some of the goings-on that I witnessed. 

Synchronised Lindy Hopping!

Where's the next act gone?

A robot that prints on the pavement

If you're wondering what the "thank you" is for it's a  City of Culture thing and if you're still wondering what a City of Culture thing is I suggest lying down in a cool dark room with soothing music. If these images aren't sufficient the local rag has more pictures here.

Old Tracks

There are still bits of the old narrow gauge rail that used to run around the old Humber dock that is now the Marina. (I've been told it's standard gauge, clearly I know nothing of rail tracks)

The weekend in black and white is here.

10:10 pm

You all know that old saying "red sky at night, shepherd's delight ..." bunkum! It's pouring down ...

Cultur'ull

You might have heard that Hull is to be the City of Culture in 2017 and I may have mentioned that Humber Street with its old greengrocers' warehouses was becoming a centre for the arts ...yada yada. Well the reality is that not much is actually going on there and many of the warehouses and buildings remain unused and in parts in a frankly disgusting state (see yesterday's post). Sure over the years I've read of countless plans to do the place up but in fact proposals to re-use these buildings are only just now going before the Council. 

If you're in Hull on Saturday there's a big 'Thank You' party being put on to thank the people of Hull for, well I don't quite know what, not chucking rotten eggs the 2017 C of C zealots I suppose, it's not as if they had any say in the matter. Only another 900 or so more days of this ... 

Old town delights

Tourists and other assorted visitors to Hull are often told to stroll around the old town and take in the wonderful ambience of the place. Well come with me as I lead you down Martin's Alley, a 'must see' attraction, gasp at the razor wire, taste the culinary delight left out for any passer-by, marvell at the up-to-date refuse collection and gaze in awe at  the strange signs left lying around to trip up the unwary ... I'm sure you'll feel truly uplifted by this experience, do come and visit again.