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 ...

That is just so yesterday ...

"This year I invested in pumpkins. They've been going up the whole month of October and I got a feeling they're going to peak right around January" H Simpson

The City Daily Photo theme for this month is "ephemeral". Catch it here before it disappears.

Tour de wherever

Seems that sometime earlier this year (April or May, does it matter?) there was a cycle race held in these parts. Maybe it was a follow up to last year's Tour de France fandango. Well, whatever,  it totally passed by me without leaving a trace, somehow the sight of a group of sweaty lycra-clad steroid enhanced bicycle riders rushing past in the blink of an eye lacks a certain degree of appeal or anything really. But à chacun son goût, as they often say in these parts, and others (more discerning, I've no doubt) were inspired to mark this event. Bicycles were painted yellow and blue and hung in various places. Quite where the inspiration for this odd behaviour came from I know not but I suspect a certain Gallic influence. 

Above is Lairgate, Beverley and below Bridlington Station. 

A little bridge

If this looks a tad familiar that's because I've posted the other side of it here in glorious technicolour..

The weekend in black and white is here.

A manifest denial of the truth

With a few tweaks here and there a dull afternoon's walk down Snuff Mill Lane becomes a promenade along a fiery glade. 

On the return journey, in the darkening twilight, we encountered several bats flying just inches over our heads on this stretch. Must be the exceptionally mild weather bringing them out.

 

*Insert the usual seasonal cliché here*

  

I'm feeling even lazier than normal so the next few days may be filled with trees going orangey-yellow like it has never happened before. This scene is near Driffield keld last seen in verdant splendour here.

Sitting in the railway station

I had a few minutes to sit and ponder on the 169 year old Driffield station and what's left of its glory. Above is the old stationmaster's house and the brick stand for a water tank, those white vans are parked in the old coal yards, while behind me the former goods yard is now modern houses. Just up the track to the right there were cattle loading facilities to take beasts to west Yorkshire from the cattle market in town. Below is the passenger station which once had a fine roof like Beverley station but now just awnings keep out the rain. Nowadays just four small trains an hour pass through whereas in the 1940's there were up to 125 train movement in one morning!
Well good riddance to all that I say. Coal is a foul stinking fuel, steam engines are inefficient mucky things and the great British railway system was a complete and utter unco-ordinated shambles with hundreds of uneconomic lines running hither and yon. There's a progress of sorts in all this, canals put out the wagoners, train put out the bargemen and diesel lorries put out the trains. No doubt the lorries and vans will be put out by something as yet unknown (though I don't see drones taking off, if you pardon the pun).
In the UK, unlike just about every other country,  the state played no part at all in planning or building the rail infrastructure. The early 19th century saw a mad rail glut as it were, completely bonkers and bound to fail which it duly did along with much criminality and fraud. After the last war rail was nationalised and rationalised and was working pretty well until monetarist ideology sold it off. Nowadays our rail system is officially much better organised with a mere 28 companies receiving between them a meagre £4 billion in state subsidies though it is said that this may rise (or skyrocket as one opposition MP put it). But surely it is only right and proper for the latter-day successors of George Hudson that the costs inherent in owning a licence to print money from a natural monopoly should be placed firmly on the broad shoulders of the long suffering taxpayer.
I'd better go now, I'm beginning to ramble incoherently ...

If you really want to know just about everything there is to know about Driffield station then follow this link.