A Wander Round Hull,
Monday dawned clear and bright and by 9am I’d already been across to the Tesco to get the paper, and as usual I made the mistake I make at least once every visit. I bought the London Daily Mail instead of the Hull Daily Mail. The front pages looked the same to me but my all knowing aunt pointed out my error and I turned around and skulked back across the way to get the right one. I did notice she read the offending rag that evening after dinner but wisely chose to not mention it.
After lingering over breakfast I headed out to the bus-stop. There are two main bus companies operating in Hull, Stagecoach which has blue buses and Hull City with traditional red buses, both offer single level and double-decker buses with the latter being more numerous. My route was serviced by the red ones. Passengers here can still buy their ticket from the driver and I handed over three pound twenty for a return ticket. While many people have bus passes lots still buy from the driver and it is not at all cumbersome nor does the system seem to bottleneck the service. Having been here often enough and ridden the buses regularly I know my way around so I sat back and enjoyed the ride. My morning’s destination was the bus’s turnaround at the combined rail and bus/coach terminal of Paragon Station in the heart of the city.
The station was a hive of activity with countless people milling about waiting on their choice of transport. I wasted little time in exiting the station. My plan was fairly simple. I intended to spend the next few hours just walking around. I find it pleasant wandering in cities by myself. It’s hard to get lost wandering on your own because you’re not tied to a schedule nor destination and there is always somebody around to ask directions when you realize you’ve turned left instead of right. Also, as a general rule you need to be with someone else before you can get lost in a city.
I did have two somewhat firm destinations in mind, Ferens Art Gallery and the Hull Maritime Museum. Both front onto Hull’s prominent Queen Victoria Square.
The site and money for the art gallery which opened in 1927 were donated to the city by Thomas Ferens. In 1991 and again in 2009 the building was restored and extended and today houses an extensive collection. In 2015 a four and a half million pound makeover was undertaken in preparation of their hosting the 2017 Turner Prize Exhibition. That was awarded as part of Hull having been recognized as the UK City of Culture for 2017. Some half a million people visited the gallery in 2017, one of whom would be me.
Thomas Robinson Ferens was a politician, philanthropist and industrialist who lived from 1847 to 1930. During his life he served as a Member of Parliament for thirteen years, served his city as a Justice of the Peace and as the prestigious though honorary High Steward. He made his fortune with household goods manufacturer Reckitt and Sons and spent sixty-one years with the company. He started out as a shorthand clerk and was chairman of the company when he died. Over his lifetime he made substantial donations to schools, hospitals and charitable organizations in Hull. My dad who was born the year Ferens passed always spoke reverentially of him whenever we passed the art gallery.
The Hull Maritime Museum was known as the Museum of Fisheries and Shipping when opened at its original location in 1912. In 1974 the museum moved to what is still known as The Dock Offices. That building had been headquarters of the Hull Dock Company which operated the numerous docks in Hull until 1893. The Dock Offices building was built in 1872 and is today a Grade 2 listed site. The museum showcases the seafaring heritage of Hull through artifacts and documents.
The art gallery visit was a first for me and it was a surprisingly large space. I did enjoy the collection of old masters, the newer stuff not so much. Of the other, I’d been in the museum with my dad twenty years ago and I enjoyed it as much this time as I did then. There was an ancient stuffed polar bear as well as many other pieces and surprisingly numerous references to Canada. I must say I don’t often appreciate that Canada is well known on the world stage. It is always a pleasant surprise to realize how well we are thought of by the rest of the world. Thinking about it, how else would millions of people have decided to pack up and move to Canada with babies in tow? Including my own parents, by the way.
With those two visits under my belt I walked the few blocks to visit Holy Trinity Church. I visit this largest parish church in England whenever I’m in town. Until Big Ben was erected in London the clock in Holy Trinity’s tower was the largest in England. On two of my previous visits the reason for visiting had been the annual beer tasting exhibition put on in the church proper. On a less secular note, my parents were married in the church in 1953.
The church has recently been re-dedicated as Hull Minster and dates to around 1300. It is renowned for some of the finest mediaeval brick-work in the country. When Edward 1, the legendary Hammer of the Scots discovered the strategic importance of the confluence of the rivers Hull and Humber estuary he purchased the existing settlement of Wyke from the monks of the Meaux Abbey. Kings-Town-Upon-Hull came into being. Edward continued the westward development the monks had begun and ordered the construction of a new church atop an existing chapel. The perpendicular style of the church would become a pattern for churches built throughout the country. It is considered today to be one of greatest of English medieval churches and is the only building to survive from the original Kings-Town-Upon-Hull.
The building has been undergoing five million pounds worth of renovations and completion had been promised for summer 2017. When summer came and went September was the new target, when that month passed it was to be October, for sure. During my visit in late October the new promise was that it would be finished in time for Christmas 2017 services.
The substantial renovations involved work to the nave’s vaulted ceilings, restoration to some of the magnificent stain glassed windows and the pulling up of flagstones that marked burials beneath. There were 159 such stones pulled up inside the church and from the courtyard out front, which had been used as a parking lot for decades. The bodies beneath the stones were reburied in the crypt and the stones themselves are being studied and archived but will not be replaced in their original locations. I asked the guide in the church if there were any surprises found during the work. He said two bodies were located that church authorities were unaware of.
Once again on my way I wandered for fifteen minutes down to the river front. From the promenade along the north bank of the river I could see Lincolnshire a mile or so away on the south shore. Strolling along I stopped to chat with a guy fishing for cod and we had a nice conversation around fishing gear and the sport in general. Ambling along the riverside I spent a few minutes watching the river flow and a couple of ships off to the east heading for the North Sea.
Then it was time to head to the shopping district on the edge of the Old Town where I came across city workers repairing some brickwork. The site was an uncovered attraction of a below grade ancient long forgotten dock. It was opposite Queen Victoria Square and just about in the middle of everything. The dock brickworks were about three metres down and if you didn’t read the signage one wouldn’t have know what it was, nor the importance of the remnants of the old stone dock to the city. The remedial work had been undertaken because skate-boarders had been utilizing the old walls to get ‘air’ for their skateboards for quite some time, resulting in the need for repairs.
Turning right into Old Town I walked the familiar and pedestrian only Whitefriarsgate Street. Feeling a mite peckish I stopped at a chip-shop offering traditional fish and chips. Hungry but not ravenous I opted for chips and mushy peas, at two pounds twenty. After slavering the lot with malt vinegar I sat and rested on a convenient city bench in the street to enjoy them, while shooing away pigeons as hungry as me. Chips are thick cut and French fries thin cut if you’ve ever wondered. I then stopped at a candy shop and bought some wine gums, and a couple bags of Brandy Snap to take back to Canada for my mum.
Having fully enjoyed myself I headed back to Paragon Station. I must add here that while I enjoyed the ride and convenience of Hull’s bus system I don’t think I’ve been on a bus in my hometown in thirty years.
Part of the pleasure I found on my bus rides was the opportunity to look around and take things in. At a stop a along the way either a friend of the driver or a regular passenger boarded. They chatted for a moment or two before the passenger moved along to a seat halfway along the bus. The two couldn’t see each other but that didn’t prevent them from having a loud conversation for at least ten minutes, to the obvious annoyance of other passengers.
I’d taken a seat at the back of the bus and it wasn’t long before a woman with four kids looking between 3 and 15 years old got on and took up places all around me. The youngest was not having a very good day. She was crying and crabby which was making her mum short tempered as well. I had a pocket full of candy but sadly with the way things are in the world today I fought with myself about offering some to the kids, sad actually.
The nice thing about letting somebody else do the driving is it also allows you to look out the window. I noticed anew that even many modest attached houses had a name chiselled into the stone lintel above the front door or living room window. Not family names mind, house names like ‘Rose House’ for instance. It is a long ago tradition that has disappeared. As I was noting the various names I wondered if postmen in the old days delivered mail addressed to Harry Smith, Rose House, Middleton Street, Hull, Yorkshire without benefit of a street number.
My return bus ride was half an hour or so then a quick five minute walk from the bus-stop to my aunt’s house on County Road South where supper was waiting.