| Walk Notes |
Kingston upon Hull (or simply: Hull) is a historical market place and trading port on the confluence of the River Hull with the Humber estuary. The Humber, formed of the Trent and Ouse Rivers, plus an ever- increasing network of canals provided for a vast hinterland to trade with. Hull was a member of the Hanseatic League in its heyday and also the place where the English Civil War started (with a siege).
Despite heavy destruction during WW II, in its mostly sympathetically regenerated Old Town it has largely retained its medieval street plan.
The walk route initially meanders through the areas north of the Old Town, including many beautiful Edwardian and Georgian properties and the large Queen’s Gardens on the site of a former trading dock.
You enter the Old Town with its cobbled streets and plentiful historic pubs and inns as well as the Hull Minster, while also including a fine Museums Quarter, before exploring the area closest to the waterfront with its many food options, often in converted fruit and warehouses. The Rivers Hull and Humber are followed to the large Hull Marina, the former Humber Dock, before routing back to the station.
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| Notes |
Hull Paragon Station
Hull Paragon Station forms the main part of the Hull Paragon Interchange, which since 2007 combines the train station with the Hull Interchange bus and coach station under the 1903-4 trainshed, while the station buildings and station hotel date from 1846-9.
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, or simply shortened to Hull, is a port city on low-lying land in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 40 km inland from the North Sea. Hull is a tightly bounded city of roughly 260,000 people which excludes the majority of its suburbs; the total contiguous built-up area has a population of 436,000.
The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of the Cistercian Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Later acquired by King Edward I as a supply base for his troops for his campaign against the Scots, it was renamed Kings-town upon Hull in 1299, and ever since it has been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial hub.
Hull was one of the few English members of the powerful Hanseatic League in the medieval ages and it was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars: with Hull Castle being the major store of arms outside the Tower of London, when Charles I was denied entry, he started a siege of the town. Its 18th-century MP, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
Hull City Centre’s streetscape is dominated by a surprisingly high number of old buildings, partly as it was an early adopter of building with brick, helped by the lack of woodlands and stone quarries in the area. The town encouraged building in brick rather than timber early on and even ordered all thatched buildings to be re-roofed in tiles as a fire precaution as early as the 16th century!
The city’s best known industrial firms are Reckitt, Rank, Needler and Smith & Nephew.
At the start of the 20th century, Hull was the third biggest port in Britain after London and Liverpool, but in WW II Hull became the most-bombed northern city and had 95 per cent of its houses damaged or destroyed, including losing five department stores and half of all shops in the city centre. The subsequent decline of the deep-sea trawling and manufacturing industries led to severe economic decline.
Initial impulses for a sustained economic and cultural regeneration were given in 1981 by the opening of the Humber Bridge and again in 2017, when Hull was the UK City of Culture and hosted the Turner Prize at the city's Ferens Art Gallery. Other landmarks in the city are the Minster, the tidal surge barrier, the Paragon Interchange and The Deep, an award-winning aquarium. Also of interest are the Old Town with its museums quarter and the marina. And while Hull has been ranked as one of the most deprived cities in the UK and also has a lower-than-average life expectancy than the majority of the UK, it consistently gets listed amongst the best places to visit or live in in the UK.
Some areas of Hull (i.e. the part of the Old Town south of Humber Street) lie on reclaimed land at or below sea level (with the soil largely stemming from the excavation of the Humber Dock 1803-09). The Hull Tidal Surge Barrier was built at the point where the River Hull joins the Humber Estuary and is lowered at times when unusually high tides are expected. It is used between 8 and 12 times per year and protects approximately 10,000 people’s homes from flooding. Historically, Hull has been affected by tidal and storm flooding from the Humber, although the last serious floods of this kind were in the 1950s.
Many areas of Hull were flooded during the June 2007 UK floods though, with 8,600 properties and 1,300 businesses affected. Further flooding occurred in 2013, which led to the building of a new flood defence scheme to protect homes and businesses, stretching for 6.4 km and finished in 2021.
River Hull
The River Hull is a 53 km (33 mi) long river entirely in the East Riding of Yorkshire, rising from a series of springs west of Driffield in the Yorkshire Wolds and entering the Humber Estuary at Kingston upon Hull. It is navigable for 43 km of its length.
River Humber
The River Humber is tidal along its entire length and forms a large estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent and forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank and North Lincolnshire on the south bank. Now an estuary for its entire length, the Humber had a much longer freshwater course during the Ice Age, extending across Doggerland, which is now submerged beneath the North Sea.
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