Rose Villa

Rose Villa stands at the entrance to Pearson Park on Beverley Road. It's now a care home for the elderly but must have been some rich man's fantasy back in the early 1900's when Beverley Road looked like the picture below taken from almost the exact spot as the above.

Finishing touch

Up above the shoppers on Whitefriargate this neat little boat and dolphins nicely finishes off the Marks and Spencer's building. M&S are the last remaining major chain on Whitefriargate which is rapidly declining into a mix of pawnbrokers, betting shops and charity shops. It used to be the main shopping area in the city and with competition from the glass and steel monsters down the road it looks doomed.

Past and present

Or more properly present and past. Above we have the entrance to Princes Quay shopping mall viewed across the Hull hole. Below how it used to be many years back, well before I came to Hull and before pedestrianisation. Yep, that's a ship parked up against a shop.

I don't know who took this photograph, I 'borrowed' it from a Facebook group and where it came from before then is anyone's guess. Isn't sharing awesome?

From Scott Street Bridge

In April I posted about Scott street bridge and its plight here. It appears there is little or no hope of restoration, it's too far gone and besides there's no money. Anyhow here is the view upstream, regular readers will recognise Reckitt's chimney lurking in the background.

View across the river

I had to poke my camera through a security fence on Tower Street to take this view of the Arctic Corsair moored up by the Transport Museum. One of the effects of the current financial depression is that the redevelopment of the east bank of the Hull has been put on hold (possibly indefinitely) so it remains fenced off and inaccessible.

Developer gets the hump

Some more images of the redevelopment of the Humber dock area, both taken some time ago (3 years! the old tempus has certainly fugited). The brown building on the right used to be a pub or club called, I think, Pepi's, anyhow it's since been demolished with a view to putting up some new 'attraction' or other. Well that was until the developer fell out with the Council calling one particular councillor the "rudest man" he'd ever met. Having seen the plans for this area I think rudeness was probably justified.

Billy Blue

Here's a nice speed boat because I've got nothing better to show as I've not been able to get out and about for a while for reasons which I won't bore you with. Good job I've got loads of unposted pictures. You might say this particular Billy is a bit blue.

First frosts

The first hard frosts of this Winter have turned this flooded field on Snuff Mill Lane to ice. Contrast this then to the raging fire I posted of the same field in April here. Rain and lots of it have returned this field to its natural state, it really should be like this in Winter. The cold snap is set to end on Friday with lots more lovely rain coming in. Here's a couple of extra shots I took.

East Park Sunset

Another Bloody Church ...

So the lights turn green and we advance a few yards and wouldn't you know there's another church, Hull's Community Church. This one is brand new and is somewhat different from other places of worship. This one has funding from the Adventure Capital Fund for all kinds of community works and so on. In their words  "it’s a faith-based organisation working to improve lives in a deprived part of Hull". Hull Council and other groups rent space in the building providing a range of services from IT training to support for refugees, sports groups, and health charities. Now I'd prefer a secular approach to this sort of thing but in reality there was nothing like this going on before so I suppose it's welcome in a way.

While waiting for the lights to change ...

... I took these from a taxi on my way to east Hull a fortnight or so ago. This is Trinity Methodist church on the corner of Newland Avenue and Cottingham Road. It's main feature is the octagonal dome which is almost always topped by a sitting sea gull. The building was designed by our old friend Alfred Gelder in 1927ish.  I've seen this building described as looking like a cinema but personally I don't see the similarity. The bus stop on the right is the one overlooked by a skeleton (see here).

Posing

Closed for the season

Fish and chips followed by ice cream or vice versa, part of the Hull diet which goes a long way to make Hull one of the chubbiest towns in Britain with nearly a fifth of children classified as obese. This closed cafe is near the Victoria Pier.

See more of the Weekend in Black and white here.

Deep scrap

This view of the Deep from Humber Street is not perhaps the one most visitors see. It's from Humber Street, I actually poked my camera through some gates to take this across the old dry dock that I showed you here. The new Hull local plan produced by the Council (at great cost, I've no doubt) has this area designated for "potential change" now what, I ask you,  does that mean exactly? Anything you want I guess.

Mudlarking

Here under Myton bridge a traffic cone is slowly sinking into the ooze. This seems to be a favourite place for cones to go to die, I spotted three or four others in varying stages of disappearance. It brought to mind the strange but true phenomenon of the 'Cones Hotline' which was introduced in the 1990's by the hapless John Major for reporting errant traffic cones (in those days politicians worried about traffic cones instead of robbing the poor to pay the rich). Perhaps unsurprisingly the scheme was abandoned after it was found that many calls were frivolous, spoilsports!

Buy me/Rent me

It's not often you see figures like this that reveal just how much return landlords are wanting from their property. A quick check on the estate agent's website shows that returns of between 7-10% per annum are being asked. Still, as they say, there's asking and then there's getting and perhaps one reason why so many commercial properties are standing empty is the high return demanded. Of course if rents were calculated on the actual value of the property instead of an inflated figure based on the purchase price at the height of the 'boom' then a great reduction would be seen. But we know empires would have to fall before that happens.

Remains to be seen

There are still some brave people in Hull, people with real vision. They can see that what is needed on this site between the war memorial and the busy dual carriageway that is Ferensway is an outdoor eating experience. Yes, the place will be a "landscaped outdoor seating area for new café bars and restaurants that it is hoped will emerge from the refurbishment of old shop units". First up a new brasserie ...Well good luck to all concerned. On a cold damp day at the end of November I had difficulty seeing the attraction but then I've always a problem with the vision thing.

So much junk

Waiting around near the war memorial on Ferensway I had time to take this detail shot and to notice that the recent stormy weather had played havoc with the Remembrance Day wreaths piling them up like so much junk. My grandfather joined up at the start of WW1 and fought through some of the worst action, his brother was killed in action. When it was over he seldom spoke about it, had no animosity towards the 'enemy' and certainly had no time for poppies, parades and memorials. He was too busy trying to raise a family through the depression years on 12 bob a week in this land fit for heroes.

Black on white

Pier Street and Nelson Street were built as part of a land reclamation scheme shortly after the southern part of the city wall was pulled down around 1813. Excavated clay from the construction of the Humber Dock was used to build up the shoreline. Nelson Street faces south towards the  Humber and the Victoria Pier.

See more of the Weekend in Black and White here.

Igglemire as once was

Here's my street as it was this morning. It's a fairly quiet tree lined road with most of the houses built around 1930 and connects Hull to Cottingham. The land on the left is shown on old maps as Igglemire, there was even an Igglemire House roughly where my house stands, such a shame that the name has gone although there's an Inglemire Lane close by. 

The theme for today is 'My Street' (which idiot thought that one up?). You can see what others have made of this over at the City Daily Photo portal here.

From Park Street bridge

The park that Park Street once led to is long gone or possibly never existed; it's just a dreary cut-through from Anlaby Road to Spring Bank but it does have a bridge that rises up and over the rail tracks giving this view of Paragon station. 

@StStephen's is now following you

Photo taken by Margot K Juby

Here's St Stephens mall from the car park entrance. Those hanging daleks are, I suppose, meant to be Xmas decorations. I learned today from Twitter™ that this mall along with many others tracks the signal from mobile phones in order to find out which shops are being visited. I'm told there is a sign to this effect near the entrance though I admit I've never seen it. Perhaps the couple on the left have noticed it and are taking the only appropriate action; turning the damn things off.

Customer car park

Here's the car park underneath Tesco's supermarket in St Stephens. I took this while waiting for a taxi to take me and my shopping home. It's meant for customers of Tesco and it's free but don't stay more than two hours or they'll do you for £70! Last Xmas, the spirit of goodwill and peace to mankind was distinctly missing from this place with fisticuffs over parking places [ 1 ]. 

They're really spoiling us ...

Record crowds are flocking to the Ferens art gallery this year. First Warhol now Leonardo da Vinci, from the ridiculous to the sublime you might say. Before getting too carried away what we have here are 10 small (as in sometimes very small) drawings, extremely well executed as you might expect but somewhat dull and unexciting. The exhibition blurb tells us that the items "reflect the artist's use of different media and his extraordinary range of interests from painting and sculpture to engineering, botany, mapmaking, hydraulics, and anatomy". Two that stood out for me were a Heath-Robinson contraption for attaching  lances to a horse and a profile of an old man which I'm told is one of his last drawings. The drawings are part of the Royal Collection (thank you, your maj, Gor bless 'er!) and Hull rarely gets to see these things so go by all means. Oh and it's free!

Half a story

By the mouth of the river Hull these spiked fans are meant to keep the foolhardy from clambering about and falling in and meeting a watery end. A few weeks ago I was talking to someone on the bus into town and he mentioned that as a young boy in the 70's he'd found a dead body in the river, just stuck in the mud. Of course he reported it and received a reward of, I think he said, 50p for doing so. He told me there's apparently some mediaeval law that sets this reward and it was set when 50p was 10 shillings and a shilling was a lot of money. That's the story I was told it might be a load of  hooey for all I know.

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.

Art Deceaux

JC Deceaux claim to be one of the world's leading outdoor advertising companies and with 1,013,500 advertising panels in more than 55 countries I couldn't possibly dispute that. In Hull the company has the exclusive contract to supply bus stops and also some "eye catching columns in the heart of the city's pedestrianised retail centre" (not my words!). Tesco, obviously think it's worth while to flaunt its wares for our delectation but then again that might have something to do with their profits falling for the first time in 18 years.

The old horse wash

This ramp down to the Humber was used to wash horses. Now you can see how rich and brown the Humber is so I wonder just how clean the horses were after their ablutions but maybe the idea was just to cool them off after their hard labour. I found an old image of the 'oss wash (as the natives call it) in action here. Seems to have been a fair number of gawpers in those days before daytime TV.

Red Fred

The lock-keeper's cottage at Hull Marina has been taken over by a design and marketing consultancy, well, ok, a PR firm called Fred, it's as good a name as any I suppose.

Ghost hotel

On the corner of Queen and Wellington Street, the building known as Wellington House has been boarded up and depictions of life from a bygone age have been posted on those boards I suppose to stop graffiti artists. This expansive lithograph is deceptive in that it does not show the buildings opposite the hotel. Glover's hotel was on the same street as the Oberon I showed a few days ago; it's now long gone and only a seedy pub is on that site.

“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.”

And still we wait for the bridge to open.... Promised in September to open in October and here we are mid-November. What do we do now? Wait ....

Hull's one and only anchor

On High Street just past the Myton Bridge and adjacent to the Icefish I showed yesterday is this impressive black anchor. There's no sign as to where it came from and I can find nothing via our mutual friend Google. It seems sturdy enough but as the old saying goes it is best to trust to two anchors.

Life in a cold climate

This pavement plaque is part of the Seven Seas Fish Pavement that I have mentioned before [ 1 ]. This one is an Icefish something which I'd never heard of. Turns out these creatures have somehow managed to mangle up the gene for haemoglobin production which under normal circumstances would come under the heading of 'not recommended'. However they live as proof that variety is indeed the spice of life. Living in very cold Antarctic waters, where the oxygen levels are higher than in warm water, they hang on in there. They're also translucent as the best picture on Wikipedia clearly shows here. There's an informative article here.

Talking about the struggle for survival, the Seven Seas fish oil factory in Hull has been scheduled for closure. The firm blames the country's economy, personally I blame the fact they didn't employ me when I applied for a job there 25 years ago. Anyhow that's another 250 people who may lose their job as we confidently stride out of recession, or not.

From Victoria Pier

This is the view towards the river Hull from what is now called the Victoria Pier but which used to be called the Corporation Pier and from which ferries ran across the Humber to New Holland.  I thought the gull deserved a close-up for not flying away while this idiot was lining it up for the shot.

City Daily Photo's In Focus features an interview with me covering cynicism, romanticism, Philip Larkin and other bits and bobs about photography and Hull. Though I say it myself it's far from boring. Read it here.

Voter apathy

Yesterday (Thursday) we had elections for police and crime commissioners. These individuals are to replace the established and functioning local police authorities. Despite it being the first election of its type enthusiasm for this vote is lower than low, estimates of a 10-15% turnout have been made. Due to very poor publicity no-one seems to know who is standing or what qualities are needed for the job. As one of the candidates was John Prescott a former Labour MP,  cabinet minister indeed deputy prime minister no less I went along just to vote against him. The choice of a church for a polling station was apt since God only knows what's going to happen with this vote.

The only sign

Oh this is a pub sign for sure but the pub is gone. The Oberon on Queen Street is no more and now a set of luxury apartments and a property developer (what else?) has taken over. Only this sign and, strangely, the pub name remain of this once fine hostelry

.

Taxi rank

These are licensed cabs at Paragon Station or, should I say, Hull Interchange. You can hail one in the street for a ride that's if you can find one because they tend to queue up at this rank or the one across the road. Because they charge not only for distance travelled but also time taken these are much, much more expensive than hire cars which you can ring up for or go to a firm's offices which are dotted about town. If there's three or more of you I'd recommend getting a hire car it'll be cheaper than the bus.

Cliché

"If the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office."  George Lucas 

Bridge for the living

Last year was the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Humber Bridge. Since then, as I may have mentioned, the tolls have have been reduced by half with increased traffic of 7% so that's good news all round. I was prompted to post this picture by one those plaques to do with the Larkin Trail that pepper the city in various places. This one by the old ferry landing pier.

This mentions a cantata called 'Bridge for the Living' written to celebrate the completion of the bridge so a little trip to You Tube found the following. Some of the pictures are pretty and you can always turn the sound off.