Twowheels

Here's a pretty sight to cheer you up on a Monday morning. Another boarded up shop, victim not of this recession but of some long forgotten down turn about twenty years ago. The building's odd appearance ( it was clearly part of a terrace) is no doubt due to high explosives dropped by some passing German in May 1941 demolishing the neighbours and creating space many years later for a police station where our hard working constables can make themselves a brew and put their feet up.

The Tenth Circle

Of Hell that is. Cottingham Day on a hot Saturday in July with thousands milling around like the living dead gawping at this and that and nothing in particular. And it was like Groundhog Day all over again exactly the same as last year and the year before that, vintage cars here, motocycle display there, hot and tired looking birds of prey display over there, an aged rock and roll show on the Green, art and crafts in the Derby and Jones Hall (try to look interested) and so on and so on. So nothing new to show for it all save this oddly placed mannequin advertising ice cream. I won't be going next year I've seen it all before. Still Snuff Mill Lane on the way home was looking at its Summer best

Sheep may safely graze ...

...but not on this pasture. If you peer closely you may see the Mayfair cinema reflected in the windows of this  shop on Beverley Road. The sheep has also starred in this blog before when the shop temporarily shifted into town. [ 1 ]. If you think this a tad odd I've seen cows, pigs and sheepdogs for sale here in the not too distant past, people buy the oddest things.

Weekend Reflections is here.

Mayfair meets Hollywood and Vine

Here are the mortal remains of the Mayfair cinema on a rather dull day. For thirty five years it showed the celluloid products of the movie industry before the little shiny box in the corner of the sitting room finally shut it down in 1964. Still there was life in the old building and it reopened the next year as a bingo hall. So for a while it was the mecca for pairs of fat ladies but even this business moved onto bigger and newer premises on Clough Road of all places. Then came the relaxed licencing laws and a boom in pub openings so it was turned into the Hogshead pub in 1998. At the height of this booze craze there about half a dozen new pubs in a half mile stretch on Beverley Road. A classic bubble that has now gone well and truly bust. I think only two are still open. Things were clearly not going too well when the name changed to Hollywood and Vine in 2011 (the sillier a pub name the sooner it goes belly-up). And now it's for sale. Surely this can't be the final reel in this story.

The Station, Stepney

Across the road from yesterday's post stands this pub. Now regular readers will note straight away the mock Tudor facade common to many pubs and probably applied in the 1920's or 30's. The pub presumably dates back to the 1850's  or 60's when the railway arrived. The little passageway to the left of the building has the grand name of  Kottingham Avenue. No-one is quite sure why it is spelt with a K nor indeed why it changed to this from Prague Terrace which it used go by.

Stepney, it turns out (OK it was news to me), was once a small village quite separate from the city of Hull. The local primary school had a rather neat little history prepared which you can read here, if such things interest you. 

Old Stepney Station

That's Stepney on Beverley Road not London E1. Hard to imagine now that there were once two railway stations on Beverley Road, one a bit further up on Fitzroy Street closed in 1924 while this one closed after the Beeching cuts in the 1960's. It was opened in the 1850's originally serving Victoria Dock and then as part of the line to Withernsea out on the coast. When I first came across this place in the early 80's it was in a terrible state of neglect, the platform was falling apart and the old track was a place frequented by drunks and people with their own unique view on how to live their lives. It was not the sort of place you would want to frequent. Anyhow a bit of money was spent repairing and turning the track into a foot/cycle path that runs across town. The station building is used as a language school, I believe, though I've never seen anyone going in or out. There are still a few drunks but their heart's not in it any more.

There's a lot more about this place on this webpage.

Today's picture is a composite of eight shots stitched together, normally I would have cropped it but I rather like the black frame. 

Pavement Parkers

From the Highway Code:

243
DO NOT stop or park
....
in front of an entrance to a property
....
where you would obstruct cyclists’ use of cycle facilities except when forced to do so by stationary traffic.
244

You MUST NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement in London, and should not do so elsewhere unless signs permit it. Parking on the pavement can obstruct and seriously inconvenience pedestrians, people in wheelchairs or with visual impairments and people with prams or pushchairs.

Law GL(GP)A sect 15

Alas no-one takes any notice of this once they've got their licence. This naughty pair in Cottingham are not just parking on the pavement in front of an entrance but also blocking a cycle lane: go straight to jail and do not collect £200 .... Seriously though there seems to be an attitude problem with some people who think they can just dump their cars where it suits them and us poor pedestrians have to make do.