Water Play Area

Ok, you've got to use a little imagination here. This device is part of an area in East Park recently given over as a 'Water Play Area' and ordinarily there'd be water gushing through this thing and filling a large shallow pool. In the words of a nearby notice it's "a wonderful area for children to have fun and create new memories"; just so long as they don't break the numerous rules that are also posted nearby.   The area is drained in Autumn, you can't have all year round fun; that would be against the rules.  

Winter trees

Here's East Park's fine tree lined avenue in January.

See the Weekend in Black & White here.

Chimney

This is East Park and in the distance stands the 450 ft Reckitt's chimney. This is now defunct since the plant it served has closed. Can't think why but I've just remembered that Reckitt's bought out the Durex company a while back ...

The Mill, Holderness Road

You're walking along an ordinary city road with houses and shops, the last thing you expect to see is an old fashioned windmill.

Opposite East Park stands this imposing old mill that dates from about 1820. At one time there were about a dozen mills like this on Holderness Road, they ground the grain from the countryside and supplied the city with flour. This is the last one remaining and has at various times been used as stone masons yard and florist shop. The buildings surrounding it are now a pub called  The Mill.
The sails have recently been renovated after they fell off a few years back.

Star Gardens

East Park's floral displays in the Star Gardens are at their peak right now with hosts of dahlias and gladioli making a spectacular show.

Not forgetting the ornamental grasses.

East Park Model Boat Pond

The pond was designed by borough engineer Joseph Fox Sharp and opened on 21st June 1887 (Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee day). I've not seen any children sailing boats on this pond so maybe the craze for doing so has been lost since I was a little 'un.

The boat pond is still used but by much older "children" with expensive radio controlled boats that must cost a small fortune.

Swan Song

 

Here's a mute swan quietly drifting on East Park's boating lake. Mute swans are supposed to be silent until just before they die when they make a beautiful song. I don't know how true that is but someone has composed a tune based on the DNA of a swan! Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

East Park Lake

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Weekend Reflections are here.

Lake view

I've posted about East Park before so I've absolutely no excuse for doing it again ...

Weekend reflections are here

East Park Sunset

Bit of birdwatching

This time of year East Park lake becomes the home for about twenty or so goosanders and every year I go along to take some pictures. And every year they stay just too far away for anything you might like to call a decent shot. (Yeah, I know, invest in a bigger lens ...) So I turn to the never knowingly shy black-headed gulls for my picture of the day. Below the best I could manage of those darn ducks.

Down among the Dahlias

Whoever does the planting at  East Park's Star Gardens is clearly a dahlia fan as every year the display seems to get better. 

I thought, maybe, a little panorama would not be out of place.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat ....

A sunny Autumn day brought some rowers onto East Park lake. The chilly wind (that the camera does not show) didn't seem to affect these hardy souls tough. 

But is it art?

No, not some modernist sculpture on display in Hull's East Park, this is an outdoor gym. At a cost of £40,000 the NHS has provided those who wish to make fools of themselves in public a generous gift.  There are many obese people in Hull and this was intended to provide them with free facilities for exercise. Maybe they are shy as I have yet to see anybody actually use it.
Amazingly the equipment is still unvandalised after 6 months.

The Khyber Pass

I mentioned before that Hull had a large garrison protecting the entrance to the river Hull and when it was demolished parts of it went to make a feature called the Khyber Pass in East Park. Until the other day I hadn't been over the bridge that crosses this odd folly nor had I realised quite how large it is.

I'm ready for my close-up ...

Readers with fantastic memories may recall my pathetic attempts to photograph the Goosanders that visit East Park most Winters. Usually they stay out of range of my camera. This time they were practically waiting to have their portraits taken. Only too happy to oblige.

The RSPB claims there are 12,000 pairs of these birds in the UK in Winter. This guy however was more like the MC in Cabaret with his two ladies ... Und he's the only man. Beedle dee, dee dee dee

Winter trees

East Park, Hull

So far it's not been  much of a Winter to be honest more a prolonged slightly chilly Autumn with mild winds and bouts of rain. Hardly any frosts. It's been so mild I've not been wearing my trademark woolly hat.

The weekend can be seen in black and white here.

Red Spot

Came across three trees in East Park suffering from red spot disease, the symptoms are a sudden and catastrophic loss of  all branches and trunk and the appearance of an ominous red spot, it's almost always fatal.

Flammengaria

From the 12th century wool was being exported from Beverley and in return traders from Flanders set up home and shop in  the area to the east of the Minster by the beck. The area became known as Flammengaria and later Flemingate. It is quite possibly the oldest street in Beverley. Fast forward a few hundred years and a narrow lane intended for horse drawn or, more likely ox-drawn wagons, is to be a main way-in to the new Flemingate development. There's big stores, a cinema, an hotel, 130 new houses, a brand new college and a 500 space car park. It opens tomorrow so not surprisingly there's a mad rush to get the roadworks finished on time, this picture taken on Friday. Will this old thoroughfare cope with all that extra traffic? I'm saying nothing ...

Old School

At the north-east corner of Kingston Square stands this impressive building. It was once a school belonging to Christ Church which stood where the car park is on the left.  Nikolaus Pevsner in his architectural survey described the building and stated that "it should be saved" and so it was; though now it houses flats and not school children eager to learn.

Below a picture of Christ Church that I 'borrowed' from Hull Council's site. As you can see it was no small affair and came complete with full Gothic revival nonsense. The building, like much of Hull, was a victim of bombing during the war and put out of its misery in the early 60's. The space has since become dedicated to the new god: Car.