I have an idle moment.
Armed with
the six digit Easting and Northing coordinates from where I am sitting at the
moment I have browsed through a selection of old maps of this specific area, the earliest
being the 1855-56 Ordnance Survey Sheet.
Although I am now very much in the inner city and with a view onto lock up garages and town house back gardens the mid Victorian outlook will have been very much rural. In fact in that era, albeit one of rapid growth of the Port and Regional City of Kingston upon Hull (referred to as just ‘ull) at perhaps the peak of the British Empire, adopting the same seated position will have put me in an open field.
To my south across another meadow will have been the course of the York and Midland Railway Line, specifically the Victoria Dock branch and busy transporting the main imports of this part of the Eastern Hull Docks of timber and cattle. The only buildings within view are likely to have been a non-conformist Methodist Chapel and the rather austere sounding Sculcoates Union Workhouse.
There was in fact, at that time, little evidence of any attraction of the location for housing, either for the merchant class who will have sought refuge away from their own businesses and a smoky skyline of the industrial areas of Hull which were concentrated along the River Hull corridor or the ordinary workforce.
Before residential development the fields would remain in productive use for crops and orchards or be sourced for the clay for brick and tile manufacturing.
By the time of publication of the 1892 O.S this location was firmly established as a well-to-do suburb, largely attributed to the aspirations in the 1860’s of a former Lord Mayor of Hull, Zachariah Pearson who bought and donated a Park bearing his name for the pleasure and enjoyment of the working classes. His philanthropy was sincere although there were distinctly profitable commercial gains to be had by selling off building plots around the circular park carriage drive for the construction of grand villas and residences.
At this same time other wealthy individuals or consortiums of the affluent in Hull Society were developing former marshland into the character district of The Avenues just to the western fringe of the park. The Beverley Road corridor also pushed northwards with full development for housing as far as Alexandra Road and beyond that to only small pockets of houses amongst orchards and close to the east-west Cottingham Road which formed the outer edge of the City.
Transposed onto the map in that era I will have been inside the very large detached Linden House, possibly a reception room with a deep bay window enjoying a prime outlook onto the well tended and patronised Pearson Park. Upon its grand opening and presentation to the people of Hull in the early 1860’s a crowd of in excess, it is reputed, 30,000 attended to enjoy a parade and entertainments.
In 1892 local records show that I may have had to explain my presence in the plush surroundings of Linden House to its resident/owner a Mr George Clark, occupation or profession not known. To the rear of the house were private gardens and a few new houses onto Park Grove.
By the time of the 1910 O.S map many of the vacant plots of land in this part of Hull had been built upon including the back land to Linden House where now stood a Roman Catholic Convent School, known locally as the French Convent as it had been founded by the Canonesses of St Augustine escaping persecution in Versailles under anti clerical laws enforced in 1904 by the French Government.
It was a grand building with high brick and wrought iron railings to Park Grove and I have in recent years met some now elderly ladies who attended the school and it was regarded with great affection.
The devastation served on Hull by wartime bombing was felt in Pearson Park and surrounding streets with high explosive impacts on houses neighbouring Linden House which is likely also to have suffered major collateral damage. Nevertheless the 1949 map does not show any gaping gaps in the building line as testament to the spirit of the citizens of Hull to go about their "business as usual".
Even today, however, a number of bomb sites still persist in the city including the sorry looking shell of the former Swan Theatre on nearby Beverley Road, one of only eight bombed out buildings still in existence in the country. Whilst the façade remains as a reminder of war it is sad that effort and funding have not coincided to restore the building to economic use or create a museum or memorial to the Hull Blitz.
In spite of an ambitious published plan to rebuild Hull designed in collaboration by the renowned Abercrombie and Lutyens for the post war period the combination of austerity and the intransigence of the influential in Hull Commerce meant that it was never implemented. Rather it was a case of piecemeal reconstruction and a great opportunity was missed.
Throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 1970’s there was large scale demolition and clearance across the city of tracts of housing with, ironically the Hull Corporation achieving more than the Luftwaffe as not all of the stock was sub standard or insanitary.
Huge social housing estates now fringed the city displacing the traditional tight knit communities from the areas close to the fish and maritime docks.
In the late 1970’s even Linden House was demolished and the drawing room of my time travelling exploits became the position of my current home, a three storey town house in a terraced block.
The French Convent also disappeared to make way for a garden setting for modern two storey houses, lock up garages and service roads. Only the imposing walls and railings of the former Convent School have survived although I always pass by them quickly as in places the brick pillars are leaning quite precariously.
Although subjected to many changes in environment and status this location does retain charm and character.
I look out to the rear onto established trees and greenery and remarkably for proximity to the city centre, under a mile, it is very quiet and tranquil.
As for the view over Pearson Park from my living room, that abundance of greenery and heritage has not changed at all in the 157 years since it was founded and given for the enjoyment of all.
Although I am now very much in the inner city and with a view onto lock up garages and town house back gardens the mid Victorian outlook will have been very much rural. In fact in that era, albeit one of rapid growth of the Port and Regional City of Kingston upon Hull (referred to as just ‘ull) at perhaps the peak of the British Empire, adopting the same seated position will have put me in an open field.
To my south across another meadow will have been the course of the York and Midland Railway Line, specifically the Victoria Dock branch and busy transporting the main imports of this part of the Eastern Hull Docks of timber and cattle. The only buildings within view are likely to have been a non-conformist Methodist Chapel and the rather austere sounding Sculcoates Union Workhouse.
There was in fact, at that time, little evidence of any attraction of the location for housing, either for the merchant class who will have sought refuge away from their own businesses and a smoky skyline of the industrial areas of Hull which were concentrated along the River Hull corridor or the ordinary workforce.
Before residential development the fields would remain in productive use for crops and orchards or be sourced for the clay for brick and tile manufacturing.
By the time of publication of the 1892 O.S this location was firmly established as a well-to-do suburb, largely attributed to the aspirations in the 1860’s of a former Lord Mayor of Hull, Zachariah Pearson who bought and donated a Park bearing his name for the pleasure and enjoyment of the working classes. His philanthropy was sincere although there were distinctly profitable commercial gains to be had by selling off building plots around the circular park carriage drive for the construction of grand villas and residences.
At this same time other wealthy individuals or consortiums of the affluent in Hull Society were developing former marshland into the character district of The Avenues just to the western fringe of the park. The Beverley Road corridor also pushed northwards with full development for housing as far as Alexandra Road and beyond that to only small pockets of houses amongst orchards and close to the east-west Cottingham Road which formed the outer edge of the City.
Transposed onto the map in that era I will have been inside the very large detached Linden House, possibly a reception room with a deep bay window enjoying a prime outlook onto the well tended and patronised Pearson Park. Upon its grand opening and presentation to the people of Hull in the early 1860’s a crowd of in excess, it is reputed, 30,000 attended to enjoy a parade and entertainments.
In 1892 local records show that I may have had to explain my presence in the plush surroundings of Linden House to its resident/owner a Mr George Clark, occupation or profession not known. To the rear of the house were private gardens and a few new houses onto Park Grove.
By the time of the 1910 O.S map many of the vacant plots of land in this part of Hull had been built upon including the back land to Linden House where now stood a Roman Catholic Convent School, known locally as the French Convent as it had been founded by the Canonesses of St Augustine escaping persecution in Versailles under anti clerical laws enforced in 1904 by the French Government.
It was a grand building with high brick and wrought iron railings to Park Grove and I have in recent years met some now elderly ladies who attended the school and it was regarded with great affection.
The devastation served on Hull by wartime bombing was felt in Pearson Park and surrounding streets with high explosive impacts on houses neighbouring Linden House which is likely also to have suffered major collateral damage. Nevertheless the 1949 map does not show any gaping gaps in the building line as testament to the spirit of the citizens of Hull to go about their "business as usual".
Even today, however, a number of bomb sites still persist in the city including the sorry looking shell of the former Swan Theatre on nearby Beverley Road, one of only eight bombed out buildings still in existence in the country. Whilst the façade remains as a reminder of war it is sad that effort and funding have not coincided to restore the building to economic use or create a museum or memorial to the Hull Blitz.
In spite of an ambitious published plan to rebuild Hull designed in collaboration by the renowned Abercrombie and Lutyens for the post war period the combination of austerity and the intransigence of the influential in Hull Commerce meant that it was never implemented. Rather it was a case of piecemeal reconstruction and a great opportunity was missed.
Throughout the 50’s, 60’s and 1970’s there was large scale demolition and clearance across the city of tracts of housing with, ironically the Hull Corporation achieving more than the Luftwaffe as not all of the stock was sub standard or insanitary.
Huge social housing estates now fringed the city displacing the traditional tight knit communities from the areas close to the fish and maritime docks.
In the late 1970’s even Linden House was demolished and the drawing room of my time travelling exploits became the position of my current home, a three storey town house in a terraced block.
The French Convent also disappeared to make way for a garden setting for modern two storey houses, lock up garages and service roads. Only the imposing walls and railings of the former Convent School have survived although I always pass by them quickly as in places the brick pillars are leaning quite precariously.
Although subjected to many changes in environment and status this location does retain charm and character.
I look out to the rear onto established trees and greenery and remarkably for proximity to the city centre, under a mile, it is very quiet and tranquil.
As for the view over Pearson Park from my living room, that abundance of greenery and heritage has not changed at all in the 157 years since it was founded and given for the enjoyment of all.
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