Up on the roof

There's been a path along the banks of the Humber for hundreds possibly thousands of years so when a warehouse was built on the foreshore at Albert Dock there was only place for the path to go: up on the roof. Whilst it can be a bit nerve wracking if you suffer from vertigo or if there's strong wind blowing the uninterrupted view of Hull and the Humber makes it all worthwhile.

Click to enlarge

Newland Avenue

The date on the bridge 1882 is when Hull incorporated the village of Newland and made the road passable to traffic, before then this was known as Mucky Peg Lane. Newland Avenue is a most interesting street whose activities attract people both day and night. There are greengrocers, butchers, a fishmonger, several bakers and other food shops, including Polish, Chinese and Asian ones, hairdressers, florists, various specialist shops, cafés and many charity shops. In the evenings the takeaways, café bars and late-opening convenience stores and the Piper continue to attract people. So you can get many things on Newland Avenue nowadays except mucky pegs.

Got the Blues

Taken from the top deck of a bus this is one of the busiest places in Hull. It's Britannia House, home of the Department for Work and Pensions, the dole office. Over a quarter of households in Hull have no one in employment and 30% of children are classified as living in poverty. There is no end in sight to this appalling state of affairs, if anything, it's going to get worse; a lot worse. Without this place and money flowing from it I shudder to think what a state we'd be in. 

On a lighter note the blue lumps and phallic pillar are testament to the folly (no other word will do, except perhaps, vanity) of a previous leader of the Council and who now happens to be Lord Mayor. He does like to dress up and make himself a laughing stock providing some comic relief in our dire straits.

Piper

The Piper club is on Newland Avenue, the centre of student-land and an excellent old fashioned shopping street. It's website claims to "have something for everyone, across the week, with our eclectic mix of nights, from iconic mid-week mash-ups to established indie nights and retro cocktail nights"; so you have been warned.

If your shoes need mending drop in on Billy at the Heel & Key Bar, he's been there thirty or more years and he's the best in town.

Golden Sun

This is a fire insurance mark, high up on the side of a building on High Street. It dates from the 1700s. In those days each insurance company had its own 'fire brigade'. When there was a fire the 'fire brigade'  would seek to extinguish the flames in those buildings with the company's markers first. Uninsured buildings would be left, often with disastrous consequences for neighbouring properties. It was similar to the present US health care system. This free market approach to fire fighting was incompatible with protecting property so municipal fire brigades grew up paid for by taxes. I guess it's easier to get people to pay to protect property than to protect health.

Wise Reflections

I know nothing of what this building is for so, as a wise man once said, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.

This is the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, part of the University of  Hull. You'll find it on High Street right next door to Wilberforce's house. There's almost certainly a website but you're all grown up now and know how to use Google™, so I'll leave to your own devices.

University House or what were they on?

Now when University House was built it was not this fantasy of glass and steel but a mere functional 'soviet-style' concrete box that you can see in the back. It worked perfectly well as the student union building with cafes and bars and so on. Obviously sometime in the eons since I left the place it became so unbearably ugly that it needed a makeover and what a makeover. It took me a while to realise that the canopy changes colour. It's pretty useless as a canopy but what the heck! In these days of cutbacks to universities this is an obscene monument to conspicuous consumption.