"This is summer, you have to make an effort ..."

After the excitement of the Lord Mayor's Hanse Day I was at a loss for something to do and to make things even more interesting it started to rain, heavily. Now a little rain never harmed anyone and a temperature like today's of 11C (I'm wearing two jumpers to keep warm!) is not going to cause any impediment to enjoying the delights this fair city has to offer ... as I was told as a child "You can't put the heating on. This is summer, you have to make an effort!". So I took my own advice on what to do in Hull on a rainy day and shuffled on over to the Streetlife Transport Museum to see what, if anything, had changed since I last visited some seven years ago. The short answer is nothing has changed at all as far as I could tell. Rebuilt railway signalman's hut still there? Check. Red bus with guy still hanging out of window? Check. Blue bus still going to West Dock Avenue? Check. Biplane still swooping low over a typical Hull Street scene as they did so often back in the day? Check, check and checkedy check for all the other things ...
So while Pluvius did his thing outside I had a quick shifty round and took a few piccies, then I put on my old green bucket hat, zipped up my coat and made my way home. You can have too much fun in a museum so best to limit yourself  or so I convinced myself ... oh and in future if it's rainy and cold in Hull I'm just going to go home and have a nice cup of tea while summer pulls itself together.

Looking at this façade I realised it looked familiar, it's a copy of the entrance to Hepworth's Arcade on Lowgate ...

True's Yard

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a slum once cleared must be brought back to life with a museum and so it is that the vestiges of King's Lynn's North End fishing community have become the True's Yard Fisherfolk Museum. I'd like to say it's worth a visit but in truth I didn't have time to go in and only noticed the whopping girt anchor parked up in the yard. Nor do I know who Mr True was or if indeed he was true to his name ... 

PS William True purchased the yard in 1818

Horace

Horace had the misfortune to encounter the Prince of Wales (not the present droopy muppet, nor yet the even more useless one before him who ran off with his American floozy but the one before that, the habitué of Parisian brothels, him, Albert, I think was his name, do try to keep up)  in Jeypore back in 1876 when the sun never set on the British Empire (as one wit said God didn't trust the British in the dark). Horace sat for a few years in Sandringham before the Royals got bored and fobbed him off to the King's Lynn Museum. So since 1928 Horace has been both scaring and fascinating generations of small, young Lynn folk. And as Margot was one of those youngsters we had to go see him again. He sits in the entrance foyer so it was no trouble. I even bought a postcard.

I've been saying Horace and using masculine pronouns but it turns out Horace is more of a Horatia really. But in these days and in the current climate of political correctness if she wants to identify her herself a he I'm not going to argue. Especially not with a tiger.

Arts and Science

Last Summer I posted a statue of Minerva that stands in the museum gardens; I mentioned at the time that there were two other statues that I had failed to find. Well I must have been walking around in blinkers to miss these two standing by the exit gate, not exactly hidden are they? The near one represents Art and the other, fittingly headless, one, Science. Neither are in particularly good condition but then high explosives will do that to you.

Need a helping hand

Tucked away in a corner of garden of the transport museum this ancient looking statue gives no indication as to its origins nor its subject matter. We have a lady minus a hand holding on to a shield and wearing a Greek-style helmet.
Well it was difficult to find anything out about this but after asking Hull Museums (thanks to assistant curator Tom Goulder) I get the picture that this is thought to be a statue of Minerva (or possibly Britannia) from the Royal Institute which stood on Albion Street. It was part of a group of three statues. So how did it (and the other two that I have yet to find) end up in these gardens? Well German bombing in 1943 destroyed the Royal Institute and damaged the statues that much is known. The same explosion destroyed records so the story of the statues becomes a bit hazy. At least it was until, by persistence, I came across this link which is quite clear that, yes, this is Minerva and came from the Royal Institute. The poster of that page also states the statue is by W.D. Keyworth, junior and dates from 1883. So mystery solved then ...
Returning to our statue and if it is Minerva then she would have had a spear in her missing hand and would have looked a lot like this.

Open Season

Seen here reflected in the Transport Museum's window the Arctic Corsair, Hull’s last sidewinder trawler, is open to visitors from today. The museum runs guided tours round so if you're interested it's probably best to book a tour (here), also with the present parlous state of the Council's finances who knows how long this feature will be available. Did I mention it was free? Yeah, I know, why don't they charge?

The weekend reflections are here.

Hands Off Hands On!

I have to admit to not really being a museum sort of person. Ever since I was dragged round museums as a child I've harboured the thought that they really are as dead as the exhibits. Still some like to take their children along for something 'educational' and this little place, the Hands On museum near Holy Trinity Church, which I personally found dull as a grey day, was just the ticket for inquisitive little minds to potter about in. Especially since those little minds' little hands could actually get to handle the exhibits. You'll notice that I used the past tense there and that's because, and you may like to sit down at this point, from April the Council of this glorious City of Culture is closing this museum to public admissions. Yes, in future only booked groups, such as schools, will be admitted.

Notice of the closure only emerged after staff were consulted about cuts to opening hours to save money. At least the Council were ashamed and deny trying to sneak this past everyone on the sly (I never believe anything until it has been officially denied). When the news broke about a week ago there was outrage and anger. So there's now a Facebook group to get this decision reversed and a petition with over 1100 signatures. We shall see how the Council responds. 

Anyhow there's me rattling on and not mentioning that this building was the old Hull Grammar School built in 1583 or thereabouts and alma mater to Andrew Marvell, William Wilberforce and countless other forgotten scholars. 

Mr Toad meets Gandhi

Seems this toad has found its way across town, a short hop you might say, into the Transport Museum's gardens with convenient access to a suitably large pond. A much more tranquil site than next to the Arc building on Castle Street where I last saw it; and peace, as someone once said, is its own reward.. 

History of a museum

This imposing building on High Street now houses the Hull and East Riding Museum. It was originally the Customs House then in 1856 it became the Corn Exchange (not to be confused with Ye Olde Corn Exchange) before becoming a Museum of Commerce and Transport in 1923. Following WW2 when it was damaged by bombing it reopened as a Museum of Transport and Archaeology in 1957. It was renamed the Hull and East Riding Museum in 1983. 

Due to the narrowness of the street I couldn't get a full shot of the facade but if you click here you'll get an early drawing of the building.

The doorway still has the signs of the corn merchants and traders who worked from this building.

So that's who it is ... the Goddess of Beauty

A couple of years ago I took this shot of an odd-shaped woman holding an apple and dropping what I took to be a tennis racket or perhaps a frying pan. It's part of a series of figures topping a wall by the riverside (I showed one earlier here). What could it be I wondered? The other figures seemed to represent trades and professions of Hull. Quite what this lady's profession might be I had not a clue (I lead a sheltered life) and various lewd suggestions from web-friends were hardly helpful. And there things would have remained had I not spent an afternoon going through recent photos. I found myself looking at exactly the same figure in a mosaic from the 3^rd century AD! Unclad lady, an apple and what turns out to be a mirror who else could it be but Venus the Goddess of Beauty. OK beauty comes in all shapes and sizes ...

The mosaic is the Rudston Venus mosaic which came from a large Roman villa in the village of Rudston just west of Bridlington. It is now safely ensconced in the Hull & East Riding Museum.

Two men in a boat

What to do in Hull to while away an hour in a February snow shower... why not try a visit to the Hull & East Riding Museum? During those sixty short minutes you can go back 235 million years, come face to face with a woolly mammoth, walk by iron age swords, Roman mosaics, Saxon invaders and on to the siege of Hull in the civil war. If you like your history in bite sized morsels and over quickly this is the place for you.

These two well endowed figures were found in Roos Carr in East Yorkshire in the 1830's. Victorians being what they were thought the genitals, which are detachable, were short arms; when they eventually worked out what was what they kept them hidden. The figures are 2,600 years old and made of yew. As far I know no-one knows much what purpose they served or why they were left. There's more about this here. 

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.

Wet day in Hull

This is the view from the Streetlife Transport Museum. As you can see it was a very rainy day. The trawler you can see is the Arctic Corsair which I've shown before here. You can go and look around the boat with free guided tours, details are here.

Lady Chesterfield's Sleigh

Here's the oddest thing I came across in the Transport Museum the other day. It's described as elaborately carved and highly decorative and apparently Lady Chesterfield used it for pleasure driving on her estate. Lady C. in case you are wondering was the daughter of Charles Henry Wilson, 1st Baron Nunburnholme. Now can you see the connection with Hull street life? No, neither can I.

Streetlife

 

What to do on yet another rainy day? Why not visit the Streetlife Transport Museum? I've shown you the outside but until Friday I'd never been in the place. What can I say? It's the sort of place that has immaculately presented exhibits of carriages and modes of transport with re-enactments of street scenes from days gone by. It's all very well done but, maybe it's just me, it felt a little dull and dated. As a child, fifty years or more ago, I saw more or less the same sort of exhibition in York's museum. However the museum has been named the city's best attraction on the travel website tripadvisor.co.uk so I'm probably just out of kilter with the rest of the world. Still if old buses and carriages are your thing you'll find lots to look at here. And one more thing, it's all free.

Don't quite know what a bi-plane has to do with street life, I guess they had to hang it somewhere.

Museum reflections

The Guildhall and Law Courts reflected in the Transport Museum's specially darkened windows. One day I might actually go inside.

Arctic Corsair

Moored behind the Museums Quarter is the Arctic Corsair, a trawler from Hull's fishing fleet of the 60s and 70s. It's now a museum piece and you can clamber on board and have good look round though on the day I was here it was locked up.
You read more about this ship here and also here. 

Riverside

This is the riverside walk behind the museums.

Wilberforce Museum

At the top of the High Street in Hull's old town stands the Wilberforce Museum in the house where William Wilberforce lived. Three years ago there was a big celebration of the bicentenary of the passage of the Slave Trade Act with signs attached to every lamppost in the city urging people to sign an anti-slavery petition. A film "Amazing Grace" was made about the struggle to pass the legislation. I'm not sure what good all this did and the cynic in me thinks it was just an excuse to waste public money on entertaining celebrities.
If you go to the museum you can tell me what it's like since I've never been inside the place.

Decomposed on Myton Bridge

 

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
  A sight so touching in its majesty...

 

Well, maybe not.

In June I showed you the construction of the bridge across the river; since when very little seems to have been done so we await developments here.The buildings on the left form part of the Museum Quarter which I admit I haven't been to in all the years I've lived here. The trawler parked up on the mud is the Arctic Corsair which is also a museum piece. There's more about that here. Towards the centre the dark brown tower is, or was until recently, a flour mill, the Clarence Flour Mill. There are some stunning shots of the mill here. This building is due to be demolished to make way for something or other, a hotel, I believe, but I'm not really that interested. Poking out from behind the mill is the Shotwell factory. If you've fired a shotgun chances are the cartridge came from here, they trade under the name Gamebore. The right bank is due for development but kindly don't hold your breath.

As you can see not much is going on here, I know it's low tide but there's only one barge tied up and no activity at all, the river as a working entity seems to have pretty much died. The only thing moving is the river and the only business now seems to be gazing at our collective past with far too many museums to be healthy.

...The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!