Square Dealings

At one time the great city of Hull  had a number of attractive central Squares around which will have stood a grand selection of gentlemen's residences, well to do professional offices and the usual Civic buildings required to smoothly run a large Port and regional capital.

Kingston Square is the only example to have survived to the present day.

It is built up on three sides and approached from the south from Albion Street/Jarratt Street. In the middle is a sheltered garden behind wrought iron railings and well tended shrubs. Loose dressed pathways criss-cross in a lattice and a few benches have been provided for locals and visitors to bide their time in what has proven to be a bit of an oasis amongst the thriving and noisy city centre.

On weekday evenings and saturdays there is a major influx of population attending performances at the New Theatre with its white edifice testifying to a visit by Charles Dickens in person to recount his newest stories. In addition to the increase in footfalls the circulatory road becomes clogged with coaches, mini-buses and private cars either dropping off or picking up their charges. The air becomes thick and headache inducing from the heavy toxic emissions of stationary but turned over engines.

At all other times it is a quiet place although during my 18 years of working from a converted 1833 town house in the terrace along the northern axis there was regular excitement from the squealing tyres of stolen vehicles from the nearby surface car parks, regular almost comedic pursuits of shoplifters and petty thieves by both uniformed and plain clothes police officers, raucous wedding parties having their group photos taken before a reception at the Kingston Theatre Hotel , the sound of sirens and tannoys erupting from the yard of the Central Fire Station, the telltale tinkling of broken sidelights contributing to another urban crime statistic, the huddle of the press upon the arrival of a star of stage or screen on the theatre steps and a lone piper practising a Highland Dirge in the open air in his lunchbreak.

The city of Hull has certainly lost out on the duplication of such events with the disappearance of all of its other such urban Squares through the combination of wartime bombing, what was intended to be philanthropic urban clearance, plain old demolition for the sake of public health or where through dereliction and on shore winds the poor original structures gave up and collapsed of their own accord.

Survival was evidently by the narrowest of fortunate circumstances.

There used to be a large, traditional church in the north eastern corner of the square but this fell to enemy action. The adjacent Church School remained under a multi-coloured tarpaulin for, in my personal recollection, at least 40 years before it was purchased from the Council for a token sum of £1 but only if the developer accepted sole responsibility and full monetary liability for its restoration to some form of economic use. It was subsequently turned into flats along with the adjoining former schoolmasters house.

On the western side of the square my Mother in Law regularly attended dances in her youth (now 84 and counting) at the Hull Co-Operative Institute although for many decades in the post war period only the dressed stone facade remained standing until encorporated into a new block of residential apartments. The aforementioned hotel was formerly the workshop and showroom for a nationally renowned Victorian dressmaker and it is easy to visualise the comings and goings of horse drawn carriages with the affluent patrons of that establishment.

Many of the north terrace properties including my own office were at one or more times under threat of demolition but the actions of the owners of those premises still in private occupation as houses were gallant and persuaded the City Council and Civic Society to advocate protection and preservation instead of redevelopment.

The street is the only one of its period still in existence in the postcode area thanks to the efforts of a few longstanding and enthusiastic residents. I did contribute to the cause in that my office was given a civic plaque for its generally sympathetic refurbishment although in reality we just got the judging panel a little bit tipsy on good sherry and the rest is history.

It was  not a little bit of sadness that I relinquished my pension stake in the building after 18 years of continuous trading to move out to a new business unit on an trading estate. I now have no real reason to drive into and around Kingston Square unless it is to have a cup of tea with former neighbours in front of a roaring fire in the Yorkie Range in their best back parlour. It is like travelling back to a different period in time.