Among the leaves so green, O

I could tell you this road is named after John Wymersley who in the early 16th century ran the well nigh bankrupt Haltemprice Priory close by and came into conflict with Hull City Council as then was in the guise of the Sheriff of Hull who ran neighbouring villages. The dispute I read came to a "battle or skirmish" in 1516 ... I could but Wikipedia has it all written down so neatly that it would waste my time so I'll just copy it here ...

"the Prior claimed that though the priory was within the Shire of Hull it was not part of it, and was within the Lordship of Cottingham, and had taken the issue to the Star Chamber; the case was referred to the Abbott of Meaux; Bryan Palmes; and Sir William Constable who had decided in the Prior's favour. Despite this decision on 6 October the Sheriff of Hull together with 200 people of the town began to approach Wolfreton; the Prior, who had been informed of the Sheriff's intentions roused his tenants, and armed the monks of the Priory, who then blocked the roads, and hurled abuse on the Sheriff and his people. The Sheriff's party returned the insults in turn using foul language. Subsequently, the altercation came to blows and a quarrel with arrows ensued. The battle continued until the monks, many being old or fat, gave way, and fled to their priory, followed by the Sheriff's group. The situation was prevented from becoming more inflamed by the arrival of the Lord Mayor of Hull, who having learned of what was happening hastened to the scene with 60 horsemen. Subsequently, the Prior sought redress in the Star Chamber, with the Sheriff accused of riot and other crimes – the legal proceedings continued for three years at much expense, leading to the settlement that the Prior was given Willerby and Newton within his authority, whilst Hull obtained free right to the fresh water springs of Anlaby"

...

Ah that was so far in the past and they don't do stuff like that these days except ... well my own little patch of this green and pleasant isle is in Cottingham but Hull City Council claims it owns the road outside my house and is trying to tell me how to keep my hedge in trim. We've been through the hurling abuse at the Sheriff's men stage and I have my complaint before the Star Chamber as I write ... all I need now is 60 horsemen since old and fat monks are pretty useless and scarce on the ground these days. 

To finish I thought I'd include this little video of a song which has been earworm of mine lately. The song goes on and on but this is a short and sweet version and, much like this post, quite mad.

Look thy last on all things lovely

Just off Hallgate there's a small garden with seats and ringed by trees and bushes. It was built as a memorial for the dead of two world wars. It's a nice place to sit for a few minutes and get away from the hurly burly of Cottingham life. Has Cottingham ever had a hurly or even a burly?
Now, however, many of the trees are to be removed. OK some of them are diseased like this cherry but some are being cut down for the sin of having grown too tall and some plum trees are guilty of growing plums which then fall on the path.They've been doing that for 80 or more years but someone's just noticed and complained. It's a shame but then we all know what councils are like.

Water Troubles

I took this from the bus on my way home thinking to post about the evils of fluoridation and Hull City Council's wish to override the wishes of the surrounding villages and pollute the water with toxic chemicals so that the ignorant, sugar loving children of the city of culture would have fewer dental fillings and extractions. I was going to mention how a certain councillor who has no qualifications in dental matters has popped up from under his slime covered stone to pontificate grandly on the 'benefits' of compulsory medication. I was going to drag in an allusion to ancient troubles going back to the late 14^th century between Cottingham and Hull regarding the water supply and how the gentlemen of Cottingham would put carrion in the dyke that carried water funnily enough along this very street, Spring Bank, and how they could only be calmed by an edict from Pope John XXI ... I was going to do all this then I saw that the Council had put the plans on hold because they don't have the Do Re Mi as Woody Guthrie used to sing. So you see years of austerity have saved me the bother of writing all that and you the trouble of reading it.

I note that this nursery on Spring Bank is taking in babies aged six weeks! I mean six weeks old, at that age you could put them in your handbag (with handles or not) and go to work ...

Met odist Chur h, Cottingham

This imposing Methodist church stands on Hallgate, Cottingham. Not being in any way religious I do wonder at the way they advertise Jesus like a brand of cornflakes or a new laxative.

Walking home

Hull Road, Cottingham

I could always catch a bus and pay whatever the fare is these days from Cottingham to Golf Links Road but then it's not like it's that far and it's hardly unpleasant ... so one foot in front of the other it is then. Perhaps I could get a bike!

Welcome to Cottingham

With a population of over 17,000 Cottingham claims to be the largest village in England; indeed this population is bigger than some cities in other countries. It's reckoned that the name means homestead of Cotta's people, Cotta being some 5th century Anglo-Saxon chief. There's an old church, several pubs and shops and a village green that is now a car park.
The village's main industry, if it can be called that, is looking after thousands of students who live in Halls of Residence to the north of the village and who commute to Hull University. There was until recently an important caravan industry; the recession sent that sideways. I hear that the caravan trade is slowly picking up so good luck to them.
This sign is a few yards from one I posted earlier. Its lazy but nice to be able to post things that are just outside your front door.

Smile

The UK is the most watched over, snooped on and generally gawped at nation on the planet.

This pub in Cottingham is taking no chances. In Cottingham's shopping area, which is no more than two short streets, I counted at least a dozen CCTV cameras, not including the three you see here. This is by no means rare, there are millions of these spying machines up and down the land.  

It is sweet and right to drive for your country

When I moved to Cottingham about ten years ago one the things that struck me was that there were an awful lot of trucks, just like this one, going back and forth. They weren't all orange but they all seemed empty. What was going on? Well what was going on was that I had moved into the training area of the Defence School of Transport based at Normandy Barracks, Leconfield. This just happens to be "probably the largest residential driver training school in the world"! They take their young wannabe HGV drivers out on the local roads not to universal approbation it has to be said. Over the years you tend not to notice them as they pass by nor when they're parked up down the road for the obligatory cigarette break.Can't be sure on this but I'm guessing tobacco has killed more soldiers than enemy action.

Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

 Orchard Park from Hull Road, Cottingham

A £310 million investment in Hull may not be a pot of gold but it will bring 1000 jobs to the city and a sigh of relief all round. What is this crazed loon talking about, I hear you ask. Siemens have announced that, after months of humming and hahing, Hull is the place they want to build a wind turbine factory. A thousand jobs may sound a lot but the city needs many thousands more and possibly this will bring in more skilled high pay positions; we shall see. There's also the massive skills shortage in the city so quite a few of these jobs may go to outsiders unless training is improved. Still mustn't grumble ...not even as every single local politician and placemen seem to be crawling out from under the woodwork to claim the glory for landing this contract.

Regeln om sex

Her most excellent Britannic Majesty's Government regularly astounds us all with its sagacity and fleetness of foot in reacting to changing circumstances. Once again when faced with a death rate of near zero from its very own Covid19 epidemic it cleverly instituted a system of testing. It would do 100,000 tests a day, it boasted, and sure enough it took 100,000 snotty samples a day. (Hoorah and God save the Queen!) Then noticing that these some of these tests came back positive (as they would even if there was no virus left in the world) it claimed, no, stated as fact, there was an increase in the infection rate and certain towns would have to be put back into lockdown (Boo, Hiss and why don't fules obey the guidelines?).
Then seeing that the restaurant trade was as near to dead as can be it brought in a 50% off voucher scheme to get folk to eat out then moaned when folk went out and enjoyed the discount... (Hoorah! no, no sorry not Hoorrah!  hush with the Hoorahs...) There were other clever moves but you want get to the sex.
So of course the testing goes on, relentlessly on. (Today I heard that vast numbers of samples will never even make it to the "testing" stage and have simply been binned, the system is creaking, cracking and about to break under the strain) ...and the testing still tells a tale of increasing positives (OoooooH *scarey noise* but as I keep saying the hospitals are strangely empty ...hmmm.) So now there's to be instituted the brilliant Rule of Sex, a device so fantastic it defies criticism. From Monday (and not before) you cannot have sex with more than six people in a house or in any social gathering, I think that's how it goes, like all the guidelines this seems fair and reasonable to me and, speaking personally, won't be too much of a hardship to endure. I might, very easily be confused on this and have got the wrong end of the stick, my hearing's not what it used to be. Anyway ... Take that Sars-Cov-2, you dastardly fiend! Beep, beep now ... and keep a stiff upper something, lip , yeah lip.
And how will this be enforced, do I hear you ask, do you even care (frankly I've given up, gone home and am phoning this in) ...  because even Her most excellent Britannic whatsit  has noticed a slackening in enthusiasm (nay outright mockery, shame! will no-one take this seriously?) for its imposed ordinances. Answer came there: Covid Marshalls! Yup brilliant, garner a posse of neighbourhood Stasi wannabes (at £10/hour) to go round and check up that the Rule of Sex is being applied. I think I'll apply, I've always had a hankering for sticking my nose in other people's business and telling them that whatever they're doing they should stop. Yes I see a smart career change opening up before me... I just need to get myself a stab proof vest off eBay.

But, seriously, anyone wishing to have their say on the Covid19  and issues pertaining should take half an hour out of their busy lives to look at this brilliant video and consider that the epidemic was a normal event, was not particularly severe, is well and truly over and we are being pushed around by a despotic bunch of thugs using a 'casedemic' as an excuse. The insane rule of six is just a device to stop political action, to prevent gatherings of discontent. We should fly up and teach them manners.

... and the crane? is just a crane in Cottingham, a device to lure you into lurid tales of depravity. The Swedish title is a hat tip to a country that did not follow the madness, suffered the same as everyone, but is now moving on or so we are told ... nah scrub that it was silly ruse to get sex in the headline.

The Tenth Circle

Of Hell that is. Cottingham Day on a hot Saturday in July with thousands milling around like the living dead gawping at this and that and nothing in particular. And it was like Groundhog Day all over again exactly the same as last year and the year before that, vintage cars here, motocycle display there, hot and tired looking birds of prey display over there, an aged rock and roll show on the Green, art and crafts in the Derby and Jones Hall (try to look interested) and so on and so on. So nothing new to show for it all save this oddly placed mannequin advertising ice cream. I won't be going next year I've seen it all before. Still Snuff Mill Lane on the way home was looking at its Summer best

Under Threat

An article I read said that independent newsagents were closing down at 10 a week due to 'competition' from supermarkets and coffee shops such as Starbucks (No, I didn't know they sold newspapers, either). This little shop in Cottingham seems to be hanging on but I wonder how long it will last if the plans for a big supermarket to be built just down that road on the left go through.

The Erstwhile Bank

In what estate agents might call a prime location on the junction of Hallgate and King Street here is the building formerly known as HSBC. If this does not become a trendy wine bar and/or  restaurant in the next few months I'll be very surprised. It seems the big boys are closing branches up and down the country. HSBC are closing two branches in town including the Whitefriargate one. While Cottingham still has three other banks that folks can use some villages and even small towns have no banks at all which I imagine is a right pain if you're a pensioner with limited mobility and no understanding the web or if you're trying to run a shop and run out of change. 

Empty plot

I have criticised in previous postings the policy of "Build it and they'll come" that seems to govern Hull's planning for the future. Well, I think for once they might be on a winner with this scheme. It's the new Priory Road Cemetery; a sure fire success unless we all achieve immortality.

This brand new plot is actually just outside Hull in Cottingham and caused a furore when it was proposed. There were all sorts of planning enquiries and appeals and a great deal of public money wasted. Seems all Hull's boneyards are full and they needed to spill out here. After nearly four years of digging and draining the new graveyard opened earlier this year.

It's a strange to wander through a cemetery without graves, usually there are headstones and memorials and so on and a feeling that you're in the presence of death. This is like a new housing estate, it doesn't have that "lived in" feeling if that makes any sense.

 Being an up-to-date place you get a choice of how you spend eternity: in the straight terraces (as above) or in decadent Nature with a woodland burial or perhaps a Muslim burial is your choice or any which way you choose. The only condition is your demise, it seems a small price to pay for a spot in this new necropolis.

Un-English Light

Having spent an hour in Cottingham church the other day I have a bagful of photos so I may as well use one or two for the City Daily Photo theme of 'shadow and highlight'. The stained glass in this church is mostly from a Belgian artist J B Capronnier a fact which someone, Nikolaus Pevsner no less, complained about saying he felt like he was in a French church and "It is all totally un-English; and how much truer to the medium English glass is!"  Mr Pevsner's claim to Englishness was somewhat strained being the a son of a Russian-Jew brought up in Leipzig but we'll let it pass, we're all communautaire these days, well at least until the end of the month. 

The church is kept almost completely unlit, so there's plenty of shadow and a good chance of tripping over a pew until your eyes adjust.

Photo by Margot K Juby

The Railway

This pub  in Cottingham has been closed since January and was only open for a few weeks over Xmas before that, the seasonal decorations are still up... Basically it's on its uppers and whoever owns it has decided enough is enough and has put in plans to erect "10 dwellings with associated access, parking, landscaping and infrastructure following demolition of hotel". You last saw this place way back in 2012 when it was positively blooming.

A house on Park Lane

That's Park Lane, Cottingham and really there's no problems with the neighbours since there aren't any save for the pylons and power cables converging on Creyke Beck substation. The noisy skylarks might drive you to distraction though.

Zion, sorry not interested

Here's yet another church or chapel or whatever they call them, in Cottingham. It's a URC building and it's also on the same street as the CofE and Methodist churches so whatever flavour of English protestantism is your fancy you should find satisfaction here. I suspect however that like over 95% of the population (including myself) you aren't interested in anything they have to offer.

Lamplight

Near St Mary's, Cottingham

A little rustic diversion

These old straw bales lie, or rather, lay since this was taken yonks ago, somewhere alongside the bridle path between Cottingham and Beverley.

The weekend in black and white is here.