River Hull

Ah the bucolic charms of the river Hull as it winds its way past storage tanks and the Mauri factory. Man and nature in harmony ...

Clough Road Gasometer

Taken by Margot K Juby

Just to the west of the Stoneferry Bridge, on Clough Road, stands this gasometer. It's one of a pair that remain on the site of the old gasworks. The land surrounding these old works was until recently contaminated with all sorts of nasties. A novel biological approach was used to clean up the place. The soil was dug up and placed in a large shed and treated with bacteria, so called bioremediation. The whole process took about two years and now a new police station is being built on the site.
A clough is a sluice used in returning water to a channel after depositing its sediment on the flooded land, in case you were wondering.

Stoneferry Bridge

There's been a crossing at Stoneferry for centuries but the big business guys in Beverley prevented a bridge being built until 1905. They were worried about it blocking the navigation up the river to Beverley. That old bridge simply couldn't cope with the traffic volumes and so it was replaced in 1991 with this dual bascule bridge. It can lift to allow river traffic but there is very little of that nowadays.

Lord & Midgley

Taken by Margot K Juby

This scrap yard, or, more properly, recycling plant is by the banks of the river Hull at the end of Reservoir Road. The L & M  yard here  is 7 acres in size and processes 72,000 tonnes of scrap a year and , in their words, they 'depollute' over 3,000 cars a year. L & M have a website here should you want to deal in scrap.

The reservoir in the road's name was an 1840's scheme to draw water from the river Hull to supply the city.  It had to be drawn at low tide so as not to be too brackish even so it was murky and foul tasting and contaminated. The city's water now comes mainly from artesian springs to the west of the city at Spring Head and we're all the healthier for that development.

Taken by Margot K Juby

Latest theme

Round the corner from yesterday's tat shop is the Fishbowl, a public house so I'm told. Over the past ten or so years this 'pub' has had three identities that I can recall, first it was called Hockney's then after that cosed it reopened as Aussie Beach all green and yellow and selling Foster's. Then it shut and magically reopened as the Fishbowl I shudder to think what they're selling now. 

Ye Olde Tat Shop

Tucked away on Alexandra Road is this second hand/junk shop. It sells just what it says on the sign. These places have an undeserved reputation for selling stolen goods. I was there once when a couple of likely lads tried to off-load bikes that were clearly out of their pay league shall we say. The owner mentioned he'd had the police round just the day before and demanded identification from this pair which, of course, they couldn't provide, that is until the least bright of the pair offered his prison release form as ID. I don't think they made a deal somehow. 

Bikes and Trikes

As promised yesterday a selection of the motorcycles on show at Cottingham day. Now I know even less about these things than I do about cars so I'll leave you to look at them without further comment.

If you are a Facebook user I've posted an album photos of Cottingham Day on the Hull and Hereabouts page here.