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.

Abandoned Car Wash

As the year drifts off to its wet and windy close I thought a nice cheerful picture of abandonment was in order. The buildings in the background belong to the Reckitt's factory. Reckitt's have been in Hull since 1840 on that site on Dansom Lane, back then it was just a rented starch mill now the company is known as Reckitt Benckiser and produces a vast range of stuff from health and cleaning products to condoms and mustard.  

Smiles all round

A year ago I posted about this shop. It was empty, had been for quite some time and, well given the rents asked, looked likely to stay that way. Well look at it now, all spruced up and open for business. I had to smile to see it so and I smiled even more when I found out what 'Šypsena' means. 

The next Tesco?

By neatly not quite appropriating the founder of Tesco's slogan this discount store on Holderness Road should go far, possibly as far as Hessle Road, you never know ...

Segal's Law

"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure" 

Both clocks were wrong it was twenty past three when I took this.

Scrapped Yard

Now even the old scrap yard has gone. I think there are plans for a shopping centre on this site at the western end of Holderness Road.

Yellow Skip

Ever had one of those strange unsettling dreams where you're walking through a familiar place but everything seems slightly strange and altered? Welcome to Holderness Road where the shops are still there but most of them are closed and in some cases totally gutted. It getting beyond depressing it's becoming spooky.

The Blue House

I took this because blue houses are such a rare sight in Hull, almost a threatened species. Although now it's offices originally this must have been a very large residential property and old maps show a small garden where that man is standing. If blue is your thing then this is at the corner of Wilton Street and Holderness Road.

Demon Barber

I didn't notice any pie shops close by this barbers on Holderness Road ...

Boyes

Here's a bit of a local success story, very local indeed; this is very much a North of England concern. Boyes started up in Scarborough in the 1880's and have slowly and successfully spread across the north-east of England selling what they call good value products at reasonable prices. There's a total of forty six Boyes stores across the northern counties and there's three in Hull. This one is on Holderness Road and stands on the site of a cinema destroyed toward the end of the war causing the last civilian casualties in the war. A plaque on the corner commemorates the event. During the war news reports were not allowed to name individual towns so  Hull became "a North-East Coast Town"; this didn't save it or the residents from a hellish experience.

Traffic Lights

OK what can I possibly say about this? In December 1868 the world's first traffic lights came into operation near Westminster Bridge in London. They were gas lit and unfortunately within a month had sprung a leak and blown up resulting in the policeman who was operating them suffering severe burns and, according to some sources, dying from his injuries. Things have moved on a bit and now there must be millions of these devices at junctions all across the world. There's a fair few here at the junction of Holderness Road and Mount Pleasant. There's precious little to say about this junction except that it's oft times busy and the sooner you can get away from it the better. I'm sorry I can't imagine what I was thinking taking such a dull picture and inflicting it on the world. 

If celebrating Australia Day (or Invasion Day if you wish) tickles your fancy then some City Daily Photo bloggers are posting about this here.

Clearance

Six months ago I posted that this block was due for demolition and it seems that half the job has been done. The remaining buildings are still trading with a pawnbrokers and a kebab shop carrying on as if nothing has happened.When they say they've levelled the site they mean it!

Cornmi ...

For reasons that need not detain you I ended up walking around the wilds of East Hull the other day. It seemed the place was either in the business of closing down or had already achieved that state of economic death. One particular cadaver stood out. At the junction of Mount (un)Pleasant and Holderness Road squats the rotting remains of the Cornmill Hotel. It's neatly embalmed and ready for sale, well good luck with that. 

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.

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.

Tall tyre man

Taken last week on Holderness Road and it really was that dark and overcast, well, OK I may have tweaked the saturation a tad here ...

The Holderness

Next door to yesterday's offering is the Holderness, a public house. It's a fairly old building appearing on maps going back to 1830s. However it is most certainly not a Tudor building as the external appearance might suggest. Apparently there was a fashion to decorate pubs in this mock-Tudor style in the early years of the last century (see also the Rose and Crown, Beverley).

Holderness, in case you were wondering, is the name given to an area of east Yorkshire running roughly from the river Hull to the North Sea. Click here and let Wikipedia tell you more. 

Underneath the arches

Tucked away behind the Mount Pleasant shops is an odd assortment of small businesses. A monumental mason, a scuba diving centre, a motorcycle and scooter dealer and last but not least a computer shop. The latter, Peckhams computers, is where I bought my reconditioned machine and I'd recommend anyone wanting a cheap machine to try here.

Holdy Road Blues

A recent article in the local paper suggested that the western end of Holderness Road needs some TLC.  I think it will take more than a bit of sprucing up and redecorating to brighten up this old road. And it's not as if it's a new problem. This road looks pretty much like it did when I first saw it nearly 30 years ago. It's always been a run down mix of used motor sales, greasy spoons and dodgy enterprises and night clubs you really wouldn't want to go to. Even when times were good they were never that good round these parts; the recession didn't make much difference to this area as it was never in growth to begin with, it simply speeded up the decline.

Mount Pleasant Retail Park

Something about the name Mount Pleasant conjures  up a vision of a gentle incline with trees and a bucolic ambience. In Hull, however, Mount Pleasant is a nasty cut through connecting the infamously horrible Hedon Road with the equally nasty Stoneferry. It is neither a mount nor pleasant. At the point where it crosses Holderness Road this architectural monstrosity has sprung up. As it is served by two main roads there's a large car park and it's almost always busy. These stores should be contrasted with the old shops I posted the other day which are just on the other side of Holderness Road and due to be replaced with the twin of this place.