Railway Accident

My thanks to the local newspaper (it's not often you're going to hear that from me) for reminding me about these terrible events on this day in 1927. Twelve people were killed when two trains collided just outside Paragon Station. You can read about it here. This little memorial is to be found at the rear of Hull Royal Infirmary. It's not the original one, that one, in the grand tradition of things, was nicked.

White van man got bored ....

...so he added a splash of colour.

Half empty or half full?

It was only in October last year that I posted how plans were being put forward to turn this dry dock into an amphitheatre [ 1 ]. After months of work all the silt that had accumulated in the dock had been washed out and the place looked ready to go. Well, as I may have mentioned, the Humber rose to record heights one night in December and refilled this dock. No problem you might think; just wait for low tide open the dock gates and let the water out. I'm guessing the dock gates don't work too well after the years of neglect so it's a case of slowly pumping out the water. Seeing the place as it is now I hope gives the planners pause for thought and they build a higher wall else their amphitheatre will be a duck pond. 

While I'm here can I point you in the direction of this excellent blog post about Hull: "Hull: City of Culture". It's a fairly comprehensive review of Hull's' architectural delights and horrors and examines some of the causes for the city's woes. As the author says "Hull is a super place, one of the most distinctive and unusual towns in England, whose assets are being absurdly wasted."

Going but not gone yet

It was May last year that I reported that the Arc building had been sold and was due to move on to pastures new. Well, as you can see, it and its turbines are still very much all present and correct. Seems the best laid plans have gone agley as they are wont to and the building is up for sale again. So if you've got £75,000 to spare (yeah, I know it was sold at auction for £21,000 but a profit must be turned somehow) you can have a bunch of upturned caravans to do with as you like so long as you move them from here before the Castle Street improvements begin. The turbines are not included, they've already been sold, not that they ever worked properly.

Cleminson Hall Upgrade

A couple of years ago I posted abut how this former student hall of residence was falling into disrepair and had become a home for vagrant pigeons [ 1 ]. Well recently (within the past couple of months any way) scaffolding has gone up and repairs and renovation are being carried out. I have it from the horse's mouth as it were that the building will become four flats. My predictions of ultimate demise were seemingly misplaced.

Does my bum look big in this?

You never know quite what you might see if you peek through the neighbour's foliage. This classical statuary can be glimpsed at the more expensive end of my street.

Poor old George

It's not much of a road more a cut through from Alfred Gelder Street to High Street but even so I bet old George was a bit miffed to have his yard renamed. How could he possibly compete with the 'sainted' Gandhi? It curls round the back of the Crown Court and brings you out near this.

Are you still here?

About a year ago I posted how this tidal power project had gone under as it were [ 1 ]. Now the good folk who live near it want it gone, removed, scrubbed and the foreshore returned to its former condition. Given that it was only supposed to be there for three years and it's doing no good just sitting there I suppose this is only right and proper however the Department of Energy and Climate Change has responsibility for decommissioning the device so it may be around for a while longer as they are having active discussions over it's future. (I wonder what  an inactive discussion would sound like.)

The Weekend's Reflections are here.

Curry House

I took this photo because I was intrigued by the overly large pots in the upstairs windows. This place is on Holderness Road and is, so I 'm told, the best curry house in Hull.

Again with those emigrants

Some time ago I posted a picture of this statue showing the guy with a thousand yard stare, well now you can see what he was gawping at; Albert Dock and the Humber. Personally I find this thing a tad schmaltzy for my taste: the man with the vision thing, the woman tending to the babe, the young lad carefree it's all a bit too much. But it's a Mormon sponsored thing so I guess we can't expect much else. 

On the subject of emigration we are still awaiting the hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians who we were promised would flood our shores once restrictions were eased this year. I guess they've found better places to go or they're waiting for the rain to stop.

Stable door

Albert Dock at high tide

As the horse goes clip-clopping down the street those who ought to have known better have come to the astonishing conclusion that the stable door was open all along. Oh yes, they say in what is called an official investigation into the floods of last year, the Albert Dock defenses were the lowest in the city and yes, they couldn't lock the gates because the tidal force would have buckled the gates but the flood would have happened any way as there was too much water. So to close the stable door temporary flood defenses are been piled up along the dock and a permanent fix has been brought forward by two years [ 1 ]. Let's hope old man river will wait that long.

Cool Place

Taken by Margot K Juby

The Times, three years ago, ran a piece about twenty cool places to stay and obviously having run out of ideas by nineteen came up with Hull as their twentieth. I suspect the 'Hull can do no wrong' brigade will be dining out on this for years to come. If you do decide to stay in Hull then maybe you will be entertained by the ingenious uses some of the many vacant shop windows have been put to or maybe not. But hey that's cool ...

Keep Out

Victorian Pier is undergoing repairs to damage caused I think by the floods at the end of last year. There's bright orange plastic fencing to keep out the unwary.

Smoke House Doors

Here's the newly renovated smoke house off Wellington Street. It's still to find a tenant despite the deadline for registering an interest passing last November. Never mind, at least the local paint sprayer who goes by the name of Hull Graffiti has been at work alleviating the gloom.

Today being what it is the City Daily Photo's first of the month theme is 'Entry'. To see what others have entered on this click here.

I bet you're dying to know what those little blue plaque say aren't you?

 

Humber Quays Plaza

Taken on Tuesday, a particularly wet and windy old day when not a soul apart from one man and his (very large) dog was to be met down by the Humber Quays. Though I got a bit wet and my hands turned purple with the chill I'd still much rather be out and about than stuck in one of these places.

You might like to visit these sites:
The Weekend in Black and White
Weekend Reflections
TR-black and White challenge

Cemetery Road

You might think that old bones could rest in peace without being troubled by the progress of the modern world. Well you need to think again. Here's Holy Trinity's burial ground on Castle Street, in use from 1784 to 1861 to take what might be called the overflow from HT's churchyard. It's a bit of a rundown neglected place often the haunt of drunks, drug addicts and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity. Many of the brick vaults are falling down, tombstones now lie strewn on the ground and ivy flourishes as it should in these places. In short it's how you'd expect a cemetery to be that hasn't been used for over a hundred and fifty years. Now the place is doomed to be cut in half by the proposed Castle Street improvements which will rip through what you see here. Up to 11,000 burials might be affected and they will all have to be exhumed and reburied elsewhere. It's reckoned it take over a year just to do this. Oh and say goodbye to the trees (and the roosting bats that live here) as well.

Komplete Control

The local phone/internet company's building has had a bit of a makeover. It used to look like this. Hardly a stunning improvement.

Readers of this blog may be aware that the local football ground is called the KC Stadium. Last week this local monopoly entered into a deal with Hull Kingston Rovers (a rugby league club, m'lud) and in so doing the name of HKR's ground, Craven Park, will now become KC Lightstream Stadium. Coming soon the deal to change Carr Lane to KC Street and Hull to KC City of Culture (it's already happening here).

Lift that gloom

Ring out the bells, strike up the band, etc etc. The news today is filled with facts and figure showing this scepter’d isle, this earth of majesty, is the fastest growing economy in Europe if not the whole world ... Difficult to believe as I shuffle round the deserted streets with boarded up shops and see the young folks going to sign on for their pittance; if this is the best then god help the rest.

This is looking across the marina entrance towards Holy Trinity on a day of driving showers and unremitting clouds.

Survival of the fittest

It was in March last year that I found it odd that there were two keep-fit establishments practically within spitting distance of each other. The locked gates and concrete road blocks are proof, if it were needed, that was only room for one after all.

Resting

East Park

Looking the other way from yesterday's post these are the ornamental flower beds that make such a colourful display in high Summer but are resting just now.

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.

Could be any old street

Mersey Street is just an ordinary East Hull street of neat two-up two-down terraced houses most with their little satellite dishes. It runs off Holderness Road down to a primary school whose tower you can see in the distance. Oh there's the Croda wind powered generator lurking in the distance but other than that it's just a plain old street where nothing dramatic happens except this and sadly this and many, many years ago children from the school were involved in this but apart from all that, as far as I can tell, it's just an ordinary street but who can tell?.

The Bank

I'm guessing this particular bank on Holderness Road didn't suffer too much in the recent financial crises. This old Hull Savings Bank despite no longer taking deposits seems to have no liquidity problems.

James Stuart JP

I've passed this statue on Holderness Road hundreds of times and thought that this guy must at least have been a famous politician, an MP or some such. I mean just look at the size of the pedestal. Turns out he was just some local councillor, president of the East Hull Liberal Association no less. He started a firm producing seed oil which eventually became British Oil & Cake Mills Ltd. So a big fish in a small pond. He is said to have been active in improving education in Hull (a truly sisyphean task). Apart from this I've no idea what he, as opposed to any other local bigwig, did  to merit such a statue, paid for by one Thomas Ferens, he of the art gallery. Normally this chap is adorned with a traffic cone to keep his head warm in the Winter nights but it's been so mild lately he's cast it off.

Half open or half shut?

Cottingham council offices

The latest news is that East Riding Council looks likely to freeze its council tax bills for the next year whilst at the same time cutting spending by £23 million. So we're paying the same but getting less in return, so no change there then. We don't know what little extras the parish council will come up with to pay for the flowers in the street and the increasingly objectionable Cottingham Day extravaganza. If government wanted to find a cut that would meet with almost universal approval then abolishing parish councils would be a sure winner. 

The Simpsons

Not Springfield, I'm afraid, but Spring Bank. 

Silos

Taken by Margot K Juby

These are the flour silos for Jackson's bakery near Spring Bank. If you like the smell of baking bread then you should hang around this spot as there's often a yummy yeasty  aroma to the air. Mind you that is the best part of Jackson's bread which is, like most factory made stuff, tasteless industrial rubber fit only to be thrown to the ducks.

Fool me once ...

I must admit when I first saw this glove I thought someone had left it behind that is until I tried to pick it up. It's made of iron and welded to the arm of the bench. This is in Beverley, the town that brings you hanging jerkins and jester's caps as part of its tourist trail.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Rainbow of sorts

For some reason my camera doesn't do rainbows so well. They turn out pale almost invisible. This is easily the best I've managed. If there's any truth in there being a pot of gold at the end of these things then I know just where to dig.

Yet more trees

Working on the principle that you can't have too many trees here's some more of the mile long stretch of plane trees on Cottingham Road. This bunch are by the entrance to the University. Plane trees are credited with cleaning up air pollutants which get  trapped in the bark which is then shed on the ground. They also shed fine leaf hairs during the Summer which some (that would be me) find irritating causing sneezing.

Danish Buildings

On High Street at the junction with Scale Lane Staithe, Danish Buildings was designed by William Botterill, a leading architect in Victorian Hull. I've no idea what its original purpose was, I could guess trade of some sort or other. Nowadays it has been split into units for the so-called creative industries.

Dockside buildings

As the evening descends on the old dockside buildings the place looks almost attractive.

The Weekend in Black and White is upon us again, here.

And Weekend Reflections is here.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Beckett's encouraging words came to my mind when I read in the local paper the glad tidings (or sad news if you wish) that this beacon of 1960's design on Bond Street is destined to be demolished. This sprawling concrete edifice was meant to be the first part of a much grander scheme involving yet more concrete on the opposite side of the street with the two parts linked via a bridge. But as "half assed" are the first two words learnt round here it was (thankfully, some may say) never completed. For some reason the council has ended up owning it and it stands almost completely empty. The largest tenant is, ironically, the council's very own planning department, I know you're shocked to learn that there is a planning department ... Anyhow the council now wishes to sell it for re-development along with the street itself which could be narrowed as it's "underused". As I mentioned at the start my source for all this is a newspaper so take the above with a large pinch of salt.

Shovette

Nice name for a push tug, Shovette, here moored for some reason by the horse wash.

Lambert

I'm wondering, in that way that means I really don't care either way, whether this is the Lambert that Lambert Street is named after. I'm also mildly puzzled how such a heavy tombstone could get shifted. Either we have very strong vandals or Mr Lambert has been trying to get out ... 

A contender for boring photo of the year award?

I know, I know, another blue plaque, so blue, so boring but the story behind it is far from dull ...

Hull's link with the doomed ship Forfarshire is that it left Hull for Dundee a two days before the captain, John Humble, decided to put up the sails after the engines had failed rather than put into port and wait out the North-easterly gale that was to push the ship onto the rocks with much loss of life. It wasn't the first wreck nor yet the last and is only remembered now for the heroic deeds of young Grace Darling who put out to sea in the raging storm rescue some of the stranded folks. Those of you not familiar with the full story may like to visit this excellent site here.

This plaque, put up on the 150^th anniversary, is close to the old steam packet wharf from where the fated ship departed. The picture of the paddle steamer Forfarshire below appeared on the local paper's site and is of a painting in the Ferens art gallery.

Twitter-light Connections

Taken by Margot K Juby

My thanks to Margot for this, taken while I simply wanted to get home and put my feet up after a trek to Chanterlands Avenue last month and was feeling ever so slightly grumpish. I take responsibility for turning a rosy red sunset into monochrome.

The Weekend in Black and White has more and probably much better monochromes here. 

Twitter-light an old word that needs reviving.

A rare and world-renowned organ

These colourful pipes are part of Holy Trinity's "rare and world-renowned organ", the largest such parish organ in the land, so I'm informed. (I'm tempted to say size isn't everything when dealing with organs, but I rise above juvenile distraction). Don't ask me how it sounds since I've not heard anyone playing it. The church's website does, however, have a rather odd video of someone playing the Star Wars theme; should you be tempted it's here.

Did you know there was a national pipe organ register or that there was a British Institute for Organ Studies? Well you do now and here's all the technical stuff and more that you could possibly want to know on this impressive instrument.

PS. It's just been pointed out to me that this instrument is "reported playable but in poor condition" bit of a shame that. The church is today passing the begging bowl around for funds so if you've a spare bob in your pocket they take it off your hands.

29 Park Street

This used to be the Silhouette Club after it moved from Spring Bank in about 1990 then Spectrum then something to do with hypnosis. Now it's available to let. Behind that gaudy decoration I suspect a fine Victorian villa still lurks.

Last Year's Best

It being the day that it is it's time to chose the best of last year's efforts for City Daily Photo's theme day. I was going to show this one  as some kind of metaphor for being stuck in this place in the fog with the lights on amber but I thought that's way too self-indulgent (even for me) so here's a pretty Morning Glory. This has all the advantages of being bright, colourful and not in Hull.

You can see what other's thought of this theme here.