This has nothing to do with wargaming, miniature building or painting. It’s a subject that is close to home and is in fact, about my home. I live in Kingston upon Hull. A city in the North East of England that has something of a bad reputation. I moved her to come to university and have lived here for going on twelve years. While it does have it’s rough areas, I do not think it deserves the rap it gets at all.
I live in East Hull at the moment, though I have lived all over the city, and this morning I decided to take a walk. I trundled through East Park, an expanse of ground in the centre of the city which hosts a boating lake, a Victorian Splash Boat, which still works, formal gardens and a variety of other features as well.
Did I mention that it also has a miniature zoo section, which is home to parots, capuchin monkeys, ring tailed lemurs and a lot of other creatures too, which is completely free to go around? As well as the other wildlife roaming the park? I got the interest of a lot of geese when I took them some greens to eat, as you can see.
Anyway, after a walk through the park, I headed up Holderness Road into Hull itself. I’ve never been a fan of crowded streets, so I went along the river instead. It always looks a bit murky as Hull is still an industrial town and the river is used for shipping, however I like seeing the little nooks and crannies and into the gardens that back onto the river – they are public ones, I don’t creep on people’s homes!
The garden with the bench belonged to William Wilberforce, who was born in Hull (he is the guy who abolished slavery), and the picture of the factory by the river was once where Henry VIII’th fort was. As I meandered around the river, I came up to the point where the river meets the Humber Estuary, and the old dry docks. They’re no longer used as that part of the inudtry has gone from the city. It has been changed from a run down section of town to something entirely different. When I first did this walk 12 years ago, it was crumbling, look at it now!
Spot the old against the new pictures!
I then stepped onto the Humber walk itself and walked along the river until I hit the marina. There is a tall ship there, an old style sailing vessel, and I was very pleased to see it. I do love pirates and although it was a small schooner, that I saw it was lovely. I also liked the name!
I then decided it was time to head back home, but I certainly enjoyed my walk. People, as a rule, don’t realise that Kingston upon Hull, up until the death of the fishing industry, was the forth largest city in the UK. For a long time, the Royal Armories were here rather than in Leeds. The people of Hull, in 1642, refused to allow King Charles into the city to gather the arms. This was one of the starting events to the English Civil War. The pub in which they met is still there and you can visit it – it is still a pub.
There is a lot more going on in the city I call home than a lot of folk realise, and it is nowhere near as bad as it is made out to be!
Heretic Deb! 