Lady Chesterfield's Sleigh

Here's the oddest thing I came across in the Transport Museum the other day. It's described as elaborately carved and highly decorative and apparently Lady Chesterfield used it for pleasure driving on her estate. Lady C. in case you are wondering was the daughter of Charles Henry Wilson, 1st Baron Nunburnholme. Now can you see the connection with Hull street life? No, neither can I.

Put Out More Flags

Here's the Railway pub in Cottingham all decked out in Ingerland flags for some football competition that's going on somewhere or other in Europe. 

Stop Press: England lost to Italy (on penalties as usual). Oh well, never mind, I wasn't that interested anyway.

Streetlife

 

What to do on yet another rainy day? Why not visit the Streetlife Transport Museum? I've shown you the outside but until Friday I'd never been in the place. What can I say? It's the sort of place that has immaculately presented exhibits of carriages and modes of transport with re-enactments of street scenes from days gone by. It's all very well done but, maybe it's just me, it felt a little dull and dated. As a child, fifty years or more ago, I saw more or less the same sort of exhibition in York's museum. However the museum has been named the city's best attraction on the travel website tripadvisor.co.uk so I'm probably just out of kilter with the rest of the world. Still if old buses and carriages are your thing you'll find lots to look at here. And one more thing, it's all free.

Don't quite know what a bi-plane has to do with street life, I guess they had to hang it somewhere.

Hessle

This is the view in the other direction from yesterday's photo. This is Hessle's All Saints Church with its impressive spire. Until the bridge was built it was probably the tallest structure round here. As we're on our way to record rainfall for June this picture is clearly not a recent one; no more blue skies and fluffy clouds just rain and more rain. Did I mention a drought back in April?

It's that bridge again

At over 510 feet in height the Humber Bridge does tend to peek into view now and then. At the beginning of April the toll on the bridge was halved to £1.50 and recent reports suggest that traffic on the bridge increased by 20,000 in the first month, which comes as no surprise to anyone really.

Climbing Bear

OK this is one of a pair of bears at the entrance to Albany Street just off Springbank. It's part of a series of animal 'street art' that runs the length of Springbank. And the reason for all this? Well, many years ago, before they built all the houses there was a zoological garden which was lost with the development of Hull. The memory of it lingers in the pub names on Springbank: the Eagle, the Polar Bear and the Botanic not forgetting the gloriously ramshackle Zoological now long gone to make way for the Hull Daily Mail offices, and finally the recently opened (10 or so years ago) New Zoological. 

It would be unbearable to show just one bear so here's the other.

Trees

These are on Beverley Westwood. If you peer closely you can just make out the black mill.