Maritime Salvage

The photograph was taken, I would say, in the last decade of the 20th Century or possibly the early years of this. 

There is not much to go on apart from the style of the Fiat car on the street frontage and that the building, The Oberon Public House on Queen Street in the Fruit Market District of Hull is still apparently trading. 

That is also difficult to confirm as the doors are firmly shut but with plush red curtains still hanging up in the lounge bar windows there are indications of life. In 2006 The Oberon was the subject of a campaign to keep it open as like many fringe of city centre pubs with little to offer by way of a menu, unique selling point, historical association or the important factor of customers its days as a licenced premises were numbered. The acronym for the campaign could not have been more apt. S.T.O.P for Save The Oberon Pub.

As you can see from the photograph it is a grand building and on the Local List but not the all important Statutory Listed List. 

It is a prominent 4 storey property of 19th Century origins and with the upper floors, multi windowed indicating a purposeful function when built as a Hotel. Queen Street was a bustling area close to the Docks and River Hull corridor with surrounding premises in use allied to maritime trade and industry and providing services and amenities for a transient working population including a number of pubs. Old maps from the 1850's era show a footprint of the building and it is known to have operated as a Commercial Boarding House in 1863 and Marshalls Hotel in 1874. 

The contrast in names does suggest a conscious effort to upgrade in terms of quality and clientele. 

The mid Victorian streetscape was dominated by warehousing, flour and saw mills and to the rear the Central Dry Dock. The further name change to The Oberon appears to have taken place around 1895 under the ownership of a Robert Attwood Litchfield who was well known in the victualling trade and appears to have had a few similar establishments including one bearing his own surname, later to become The Red Lion in Toll Gavel, Beverley of which only architectural features remain on what is now Building Society Offices. 

The name Oberon does have classical connotations but the signage which still hangs on the front elevation today and can just be seen on the photograph is of a sailing ship rather than a literary character. 

There was a Royal Navy Sloop of the same name in 1847 but with no apparent connections to the Port and Maritime City of Hull. Another locally built vessel at the Cook, Welton and Gemmel Shipyards called the Oberon was operated by the Hellyer Line after its construction in 1885 but this may be a speculation too far. 

In 1890 the frontage of the building was refashioned into the facade that can be seen with fine stonework features to arches, window surrounds and cill bands, There were and still are other prominent buildings in proximity, most notably The Pilots Office at the corner of Queen Street and The Pier but many were also lost to development, urban clearance and wartime bombing. 

Sometime in May to June 1941 a high explosive bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe caused considerable damage to The Oberon and as an indication of the extent it appears that the building did not reopen until around 1954. 

There is little historical fact to illustrate the role of The Oberon for much of the early part of the 20th Century so it reasonable to assume that it just traded quietly and covered its costs. 

In the inter war years some rooms at the property known as Oberon Chambers were let for business use and such organisations as the Road Hauliers Association or at least a forerunner of it gave the address as a point of contact in 1937. 

With the demise of the Humber Ferry in the years approaching the opening of the Humber Suspension Bridge crossing , the decline of the Fruit Market District and a sparse local population the level of footfalls in Queen Street fell dramatically and The Oberon and other businesses relying on regular or passing trade slowly became unviable economically. 

The upper floors, capable of providing spacious owners/proprietors accommodation and a good number of letting rooms were described as semi derelict at the time of the S.T.O.P Campaign and in reality the building had reached obsolescence as a Public House. 

In 2007 Planning Permission was granted to convert the property into ground floor offices and with nine small but self contained flats above. It was an ambitious scheme but sympathetic to the external appearance as can be seen by the photograph below which was taken within the last couple of weeks. 

The 2007 conversion was obviously intended to catch the price boom prevailing at that time in Hull and indeed much of the country. The flats or loosely called Apartments were of nice specification but still very small, averaging about 400 square feet for one bedroom, living/kitchen and shower room. 

Balconies were added to the rear east outlook but overlooked a large dilapidated asbestos roofed shed. The selling prices were all well over £100,000 per flat but the timing was wrong and with the subsequent credit crisis and property crash in 2008/2009 the developers opted to keep the flats and rent them out. 

In very recent years the location has been transformed with a high spec office complex and residential development and The Fruit Market continues to act as an important venue for events for the Hull as the UK City of Culture and for other performance and public functions. 

Of great benefit to The Oberon was the demolition of the ramshackle industrial buildings which adjoined to the north and spoiled the view to the east. Those balconies now give an enviable view directly onto The Deep, the largest aquarium in Britain and the revamped river walks and wharfage including an open air theatre. 

    The Oberon has had an interesting story and one that is now entering a new and revitalised era.