OS Explorer map 293, Kingston-upon-Hull & Beverley – I do not own this map, and had not visited it before starting this blog. Visited for this post 22nd September 2022.
Google Maps location links: Hull, Bridlington
I visited this map area as part of my All Line Rover trip in September 2022, travelling around Britain by train, for which I did day-by-day blog posts already, and am now going through doing my regular posts about the new map areas I visited. The main content below will therefore be just a lightly edited version of relevant parts from my post about Day 6 of the trip – for a more connected narrative I recommend taking a look there instead.
I arrived in Hull in the late afternoon of this day of travelling, having come from Edinburgh by way of the Scottish Borders, Berwick and York.
I have to say, Hull – or at least the city centre, which is all I saw – was very nice, and does not at all deserve its bad reputation. In my experience, for some reason Hull doesn’t just have a normal level of bad reputation – such that when you think of the place, you might expect it to be a bit grim, like Middlesbrough, say, or Blackburn. No, for some reason it seems to, along with its southern peer Slough, be the stereotypical grim place, fitting well in phrases like “well, at least it’s not Hull” – or indeed in this excellent Blackadder moment. But no, it was positively pleasant!
I arrived at Hull Paragon Interchange, my second great transport interchange of the day, which is both the city’s main bus and train station, with an area under the main historic roof that I assume once held more train platforms having now been adapted to contain a row of bus gates. It was a little dingy, with lots of empty space that could be more productively and pleasantly used, but still, I was impressed.
From there, I spent an enjoyable hour or so wandering around the city centre. Hull has been an important port since high medieval times, diminishing in importance only in the 20th century, but is still a substantial regional centre. There were bustling modern shopping streets, imposing Georgian and Victorian squares, and quiet cobbled medieval lanes in the Old Town.
The museums in the Old Town’s museums quarter, mostly focussed on local history, looked rather inviting, but unfortunately had closed at 5pm, just before I was exploring. Walking along a street nearby, I saw an intruiguing old-fashioned sign featuring a hand proudly holding aloft a carrot, for Hitchcocks Vegetarian Restaurant. I went onto its website, and I have to say, it sounds pretty amazing – it’s desribed as “a confusion of rooms situated on several levels creating natural havens and hideaways“, with an “atmosphere created by a mixture of eclectic and eccentric styles mixed in with a quirky collection of thrift store curiosities. […] The menu for the evening is chosen by the first person to book for that night and is usually based on the cuisine of a particular country“.
I feel like vegetarian restaurants tend to always have a modern/cool vibe, so it’s refreshing finding one so different, and indeed with such a history. I also didn’t quite manage to puzzle out why on one side of the sign the carrot had the green bit at the top, and on the other it was missing. How mysterious! Regrettably, I needed to travel onwards that evening, so didn’t go in, but it’s absolutely on my list to come back and try Hitchcock’s one day! I can go to some of the museums too.
Some architects working on Hull have clearly enjoyed thinking big – the guildhall is enormous, and the Wilberforce Monument joins Nelson’s Column in the category of “statue on a pillar so ridiculously high you have no chance of making out what the statue is”.
After my wander around town, I got myself a McDonalds plant burger and Subway cheese salad to eat in the train station for dinner, before catching my final train of the day, which took me the forty-five minutes or so over to Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast, where I’d be staying for the night, and outside this map area!
Visiting all the maps! 