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. 

The past is a foreign country

The junction of Spring Bank and Princes Avenue is a fairly busy place at the best of time.The traffic flow is now improved by a new lights but even so tailbacks are a regular feature. Imagine how much worse they would be if the railway that used to run across this junction was still operating and all traffic had to stop to let a train go by. Well that's how it was until 1964 when the trains to Hornsea and Withernsea used to trundle through here stopping at the Botanic Station which was close to the pub on the left. Below an old photo of how it used to be taken from more or less the same place; note the solitary policeman to control affairs. 

There's more information on the old station here which is also the site I borrowed the above picture from.

Stand out from the rest

Hull's expansion at the end of the 19^th century led to the development of Spring Bank West. It was formerly known as Derringham Bank and already had the General & Western cemeteries along its northern side. SBW eventually spread out to the far western edges of the city and is now a major commuting route with thousands of vehicles passing along it every day. The houses at the Eastern end are basically  long terraces of late Victorian/Edwardian houses all pretty much the same. About half way down this section of the road this little end terrace house stands out from the crowd with its circular turret surmounted by a fine weather vane. No matter how fine the windows, however, the view from them is the same, the cemetery .... and traffic.

Cold in the earth-and the deep snow piled above thee Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Thank you for that, Emily. Here's one for the psychrophilic taphophiles amongst us, snowy tombstones in Cottingham churchyard.

Bleak Midwinter

Taken by Margot K Juby

It's January and it's snowing and there's no real surprise in any of that. Only surprise is that anyone would go out in -5C and get their fingers frozen to take photos. Well it wasn't me, I stayed indoors all warm and snug while someone else did the hard work. I suppose a big 'thank you' to Margot is in order.

More monochrome blogs at The Weekend in Black & White.

Carr Lane

The word 'carr' is derived from old Norse kjarr, meaning swamp, and is a waterlogged wooded terrain, a stage in the transformation of wetland to forest. Carr Lane runs west from Queen Victoria Square and its name is a reminder that Hull was once surrounded by boggy marsh land. What you see here is the main entrance to Princes Quay shopping centre and, to the right, a fine example of 1970's brutalist architecture. Such is the fickle nature of fashion that I can imagine some blogger in the future lamenting its loss. 

Grey skies are gonna clear up .....ain't they?

As I've said before a walk around the city centre these days can be a really depressing experience. There are so many empty shops and the prospect of more to come. It's been a really grim week for job losses. The closures of HMV, Blockbusters (even Gwenap!) and many more mean that nationwide 17,000  jobs have gone or are under threat in the past week with only 2500 jobs created [ 1 ]. Still not to worry the Government, busy spreading sunshine all over the place, tells us that the economy is on the mend and they wouldn't lie to us, would they?