Inside looking out on Bank Holiday Monday

If the weather's not too good or you're interested in anything maritime and fishing related then Hull's maritime museum is worth a visit. If you've been before or are bored by the whole thing then you can always look out of the windows and see the world from a different angle. Did I mention that it's free?

Chuck Jones joins the NHS

I think I may have mentioned before that Hull doesn't do hubris. At the outbreak of the last war the man in charge of Hull's museums advised curators against moving their collections to safer places. He is quoted as saying  "even if there is an air raid they [the Hull Museum authorities] have taken the necessary measures for protection from anything except a direct hit". You can see where this is going. On 24th June 1943 Hull's Municipal Museum on Albion Street took a direct hit by an incendiary bomb. The whole place was destroyed leaving only a bombed out site that was eventually cleared and turned into a car park. 

All was not lost as in the late 1980s an archeological excavation of the site recovered many items that had been stored in the museum's basement; including a motorbike left in the boiler room.

The site is now being cleared to build a "Health and Well Being Centre" with access to a "range of health and council services" in "modern and welcoming surroundings". This picture shows the intended construction. 

Maritime Musuem from Princes Quay

A different view of the museum I mentioned a few days ago. This is Princes Quay, an old dock that is now a shopping mall. The dock used to lead  past the Dock Offices to another, larger, dock that has now been filled in. Where the lamppost is in the middle there used to be large monument to William Wilberforce. 

Princes Quay and the Dock offices were painted in the 19th century by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

Paragon Street, Hull

The domed building in the distance used to be the Dock Offices and is now a maritime museum complete with a mermaid.
I should mention that the swifts are here at last. "They’ve made it again/ Which means the globe’s still working . . ."