When the wind is in the East...

...'tis neither good for man nor beast.

This weather vane  is atop the Victorian Conservatory in Pearson Park.

Police Station For Sale

Having put all their eggs in one basket by moving to Clough Road, Humberside Police now find themselves with surplus empty police stations. One in East Hull went for £300,000 just the other week and this one on Queen's Gardens is also up for grabs. The council had an idea of joining the sale of the station with redevelopment of the multi storey car park behind. A bigger site would attract a higher premium being their thought (for once it's not a bad idea). Now you'd think public services like the police and the council could at least get along well enough to come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. But, as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside plod is of one political persuasion and the council is run by a different party, no agreement has been reached between the two idiotic parties over the future of this place. The PCC is also up for re-election next month so probably wants to get some Brownie points for independence though during his tenure the force has seen the highest burglary rates and been declared 'inadequate' by those who declare these things. He's not all heartless bureaucrat though, recognising that the place will attract vandals and so be unappealing during the year of culture he has promised to have the place demolished if it's not sold by then; leaving an empty brick filled demo site instead to greet visitors to Queen's Gardens. As I say, a thoughtful sort of guy.

Look your last on all things not so lovely

High rise buildings were seen as an answer to a lack of space in inner cities, you couldn't build out so you built up. Strange then that when Hull spread out into the fields and countryside surrounding it in the 1960's building hundreds of Council houses in the fancifully named Orchard Park Estate, it also built several high rise blocks despite there being no lack of space. OPE, as it is tagged by local grafittistas, was designed along the lines of Radburn, New Jersey, a garden city 'planned for the motor age'. Well what might have worked in 1930's NJ didn't quite workout in East Yorkshire. One suspects the crossing of palms with silver may have happened as it did in other slum clearances and redevelopments in other towns across the country at the time. Anyhow a high rise with a country view turned out to be no more popular than a high rise with a view of the back of Paragon Station. Nor did it lead to a community-in-the-air rather a dystopian anti-social nightmare with the usual mix of high unemployment (currently 27%), vandalism, drugs and crime. So to cut a long and sadly predictable story short these towers are being removed either by explosion or gobbled up by a giant building eating machine. This one, Highcourt, is the last one standing and it too should be gone soon with a bang so I'm told. 

Meanwhile in another part of town I read that 5,402 new homes are set to be built in Hull in the next five years. I love the exactness of the figure and the vagueness of the phrase "set to be built". Maybe the palms haven't as yet been crossed with enough silver ...

Conversion

What to do with a no-longer wanted masonic hall? Turn it into a Hindu temple and cultural centre seems like as good an idea as any. The temple opened four years ago and is, so I've read, the only one "east of Leeds". The remarkably symmetrical facade has been left unaltered save for covering up a freemason sign with the sign you see above.  The building is on Park Street, off Anlaby Road.

The Whitefriars Gate, King's Lynn

Hull has its Whitefriargate here in King's Lynn between terraced houses and a silted up quay is the Whitefriars Gate. It's the last vestige of a Carmelite Friary at the southern end of Lynn. A little sign around the back tells us the following "Gateway of the Carmelite Friary which from before 1260 until 1538 occupied a precinct to the south-east. Here lived Friar Aleyn, writer of 'The Book of Margery Kempe' the earliest biography in the English Language, c1436-40." This little jewel has survived the dissolution of the monasteries, sale to Lynn corporation, demolition of walls surrounding, demolition of later buildings abutting it and now stands in splendid isolation overlooking a car park.

I found an interesting blog post on this monument here.