In isolation it seems out of place amongst the yellow brick fronted houses. It is nothing fancy, just a utilitarian or working premises, latterly a motor vehicle garage but now locked up and being advertised to rent. The brickwork is a hard faced plain red, almost engineering standard under an authentic slate roof. There is a two storey range with a window overflying the double doors and an adjoining but not original side addition with a matching enclosed opening. To the western side is a slim, wall hugging lean-to.
In passing I have wondered why it is where it is. It does not appear to belong to anything else.
When trading as a car workshop a couple of years ago it was a case of pedestrians weaving their way through parked and jacked up vehicles that were being worked on straddling the pavement. There were obviously no external grounds beyond the building footprint.
At some time the building will have been severed and sold off as an independent entity.
I thought I would make some investigations.
On the earliest generally available Ordnance Survey Map from 1892 the outline of the two storey part of the building is easily identified at the end of Grove Street.
It stood then as part of the sizeable grounds of a grand villa known as Sunnyside which has a frontage onto the greenspace of Pearson Park. The Park was laid out in the 1860's with the public access land being gifted by Zachariah Pearson, Mayor of Hull.
His was a calculated donation in that the land fringing the wide carriage-capable oval roadway was retained for private sale as prestigious building plots.
Sunnyside will have been amongst the earliest properties to emerge under the legal covenants to a Hull entrepreneur Edward Dannatt;
"for himself his heirs executors and administrators with the said Zachariah Charles Pearson his appointees heirs and assigns...to erect build and finish and afterwards maintain on each of the said several plots pieces or parcels of building ground either one or two (but not more than two) good and substantial Villa Residences or dwellinghouses of not less elevation than 26 feet each house such Villa Residences or dwellinghouses to be faced with red or white stock bricks or stone and to have suitable outbuildings and conveniences thereto".
Sunnyside was a semi detached villas adjoining Grove House and the outbuildings and conveniences referred to in the covenant will have included the two storey structure as a coach house and stable.
Furthermore, the garden of Sunnyside in 1892 included large glasshouses, likely to be in the Victorian style as an orangery or under the now much diluted modern description of a conservatory.
The occupant of the house in 1892 was Mrs Ellen Earle, one of the dynasty of wealthy shipbuilders and merchants and obviously not short herself of a few pennies given the cost of running a domestic and general staff. The accommodation over the coach house will have been suitable for a groom or coachman.
On the 1910 OS map the building is larger. A photograph taken looking west down Grove Street from Beverley Road unfortunately only shows a garden wall and gate but the 1910 extension to the coach house will undoubtedly have been to take a motor car.
This was a luxury item only within reach of the most affluent in society at the time. The horse and carriage were rapidly being superceded by the combustion engine in the first couple of decades of the new century. The building was however quite adaptable to the transition from one form of horse power to the other.
The surroundings were also changing with an off road terrrace, West View, springing up to provide neighbours.
In the wartime blitz on Hull this location suffered direct and collateral damage as the enemy bombers lined up to target the industrial and commercial areas and railway network in Sculcoates and Wincolmlee. A string of high explosive bombs fell in the Park and on the adjacent Pearson Avenue in 1941 causing mayhem and the blowing out of roofs and walls.
The small premises on Grove Street will certainly have sustained some damage from shock waves.
It does however retain its footprint on the 1949 Mapping and with another west side extension, possibly a covered bay for another car showing ongoing function and purpose.
This later part of the building did not last as by the 1960's and 1970's the break up of the Sunnyside estate was under way.
Land to the north side of the villa was developed for an unsympathetically designed block of residential flats and the increase in occupancy levels demanded that the part of the site formerly under-glass was replaced by two rows of sectional concrete and asbestos or sheet metal roofed rented, lock up garages. To create the access to the garages the later side addition was largely demolished with only the existing slim lean-to remaining.
The off road parade of garages is now in a state of abandonment being regarded by car users as insecure to park a vehicle even though they do not hesitate to leave them out on the kerbside.
That brings us to the present day. I will wait and see what happens in the next chapter of the life cycle of this hardy, working building.
1 comment:
A Planning Notice has appeared in recent weeks attached to the nearest lamp post to this wonderful property. A Developer has submitted a Planning Application for a block of flats which would involve demolition and clearance of the site. I am not against progress and understand the pressures in urban areas to create homes but this would be a disappointment if granted.
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