Dove House

A common sight on many shopping streets in this area is the Dove House charity shop collecting funds for the hospice for people with "a life limiting illness". When I say common there are over thirty of them spread across Hull and other East Riding towns providing 20% of the income for this charity. This one in Beverley Road specialises in furniture but it's right next to a more general shop selling the usual mix of clothing, books and toys. They also run a lottery. Hospices receive just a third of their funding from central Government so need all the help they can get.

Obligatory Butterfly

I can't go a  whole Summer without a picture of a butterfly, now can I? This Speckled Wood butterfly was taking a breather near the entrance to Cottingham church, may be saying a few prayers, who knows.

Rusty bits

 

This is part of the C4DI redevelopment of the dry dock that I've mentioned so many times you're probably bored by it. Since these pictures were taken the rusty leaking old lock gates have now been patched up and the dock is now dry at long last. Unfortunately the little pathway that runs around the river edge was closed as they take a dim view of hitting passing pedestrians on the noggin with flying debris. 

Today's first of the month theme for City Daily Photo is 'Rust and Ruins' .

The point of delivery

The NHS has undergone many twists and turns over the years. There are many who say it is being sold off for private profit, well that maybe, there are other better places for that argument. Here, however, a private hospital has been sold to the NHS to safeguard the care and treatment of patients. This used to be the Nuffield Hospital on Westbourne Avenue until 2008 when the NHS took it over. 

Looking into the history of the building I find a Mr E H Garbett, a manager of the Hull Dock Company lived here in the 1890's, the house was then called Barcombe House. He was a member of the Primrose League, an organisation set up to promote Conservative Party policies and values, back in the days when Gladstone was PM. I wonder what he would make of his former home being part of a health service, free at the point of delivery, based on clinical need, not ability to pay; one whose founder, Nye Bevan, called "pure Socialism".

I cannot post about this building and fail to mention that this was the place where Philip Larkin died. There is, inevitably, a plaque on the wall outside, a kind of memento mori to all who enter. Cheerful, innit?

High Windows

Squeezed into a narrow plot between a railway line, an old Jewish cemetery and a cut-through dedicated for some strange reason to Saint Ninian lie three or four of these new eco-buildings. No Queen Anne revival style here more your overgrown insulated tea chest. The windows are three stories and give nice reflections but I cannot imagine how dreary the view must be from within . The interiors are extremely spacious with triple height voids(!), how do I know? The architects tell us so and invite us to have a good look round here. I know this should be paradise but what, exactly, do you do with all that space and all that sun-comprehending glass?

Weekend reflections are here.

Like a beast with his horn ...

Unicorns do not exist, 

they only think they do. 

Unicorns do not exist, 

they've better things to do.

This unicorn is neither pink nor invisible nor yet a unicorn. It is one of those tree carvings carried out in the Avenues on trees that have either died or been deemed to be damaging property and killed off. Sadly it seems no-one has taken any care of  it and it is riddled with woodworm holes and will, no doubt, cease to exist in the the not too distant future unless some virgin with a large tin of Borax comes along and tames it.

By the by if anyone knows the source of the verse, please do tell. I can't find any attribution on the web.

The Weekend in Black and White may exist here.

Salisbury Street

Read any description of the Avenues area of Hull and sooner or later you'll come across mention of George Gilbert Scott Jr and his Queen Anne revival style residences on Salisbury Street. Now when it comes to the Gilbert Scotts of this world it's Sir George père (Albert memorial, Midland Hotel at St Pancras station etc) and Sir Giles petit-fils (Liverpool Cathedral and red telephone boxes) that are remembered in the architectural world. George junior's works in the Queen Anne revival style have been overlooked for the most part, perhaps not without reason. These buildings on Salisbury Street with their concrete and brick construction are mind numbingly symmetrical and twee. They have some interesting external decoration but they're not really my cup of tea. They are Grade 2 listed buildings and have I suppose some historical interest in architectural terms.

Last year some brave soul proposed to build a block of flats in the gardens behind two of these buildings. Fat chance! Cue a whole brigade of angry locals and the Hull Civic Society (see here from page 9) all fired up and the Council (which a few years ago subsidised the renovation of these buildings), of course, refused it. 

I wouldn't want you to go away thinking all of Salisbury Street is like this. There are, thankfully,  only eight of these buildings the rest of the street is more typical Victorian middle class terrace, with garrets for house servants, of course.