Hull City Of Culture

Kingston upon Hull (to name its official title) was recognised as the UK city of culture from 2017 until the next city succeeded in 2021. By 2025 Hull is still successfully on its path of resurrection having been named one of the top 25 global destinations to visit in 2026, by the internationally printed periodical, National Geographic, but why would you visit Hull.

Hull is a great place to visit and walk around and to hear music and local contemporary poets. It also has a history unrivalled by many other major British cities and centred for many years around maritime trades and "Hessle Road" ('esl road): the West Hull centre of employment, commerce and social life of families involved with the fishing industry; very rich to very poor, many suffered greatly in the  Icelandic Cod War of the 70's and for centuries whenever boats were lost, the Gaul being the most famous and enigmatic. The works of Hull born photographer Alec Gill recorded much of this from the sixties to the present day, but his work is copyrighted and I may not show it. (Search Alec Gill Hull photographer)

Hull is weird place, always rated poorly in the national press but loved by people and visitors alike (many of whom stay to work) and has many questions asked of it by "outsiders".

Since 1299 the title of this city is actually Kingston Upon Hull (the King's town upon the river Hull) and though it has been blighted by poor politics and lousy national press over the years, it is actually a great friendly place to live, with an interesting history, especially the rejection of King Charles 1st's entry into the city; an act by Sir John Hotham that precipitated the English Civil War (and the later death of Hotham). To this day fools are not suffered lightly as there is still a bit of small town clannishness.

N.B. Some words (in the poems below) have mostly local use only:
Larkin = Larking around or Phillip Larkin, the ex poet laureate.
Tigers = Hull City football club. (Whole city)
Robins = Hull Kingston Rovers rugby league team (East Hull)
Airlie Birds = Hull FC rugby league team (West Hull) after street address (Airlie St.) of old stadium.
Quakers = As in the Quakers of quasi religious and benevolent fame (see pictures below).
Whitefriars / Blackfriars = Religious orders whose locations gave Hull street names.
Land Of Green Ginger = A small street in Hull (See web details)
Reckitts / Ferens / Needlers / Rosedowns = A few of many famous families / companies from Hull.
Frys = A famous Bristol based chocolatier Quaker family who inspired the Reckitts of Hull.
Mucky Buckies = Children of Buckingham Street.
Montrose's = The gang in Montrose street.
Farreey = Vast and semi-derelict railway land storing timber, gangs and girls.
Johnny Greensides = His mum was my first crush.
Mitchell Brothers = Of the Mitchell family, the hardest we knew, into bikes and removals.

Anyway, here are poems I wrote specifically about Hull, along with some pictures.

HULL

Hull is not a rat-race.
Hull is a nice place.

Hull is not chav-town
Hull has thrice a crown:
a king’s town.

Kingston Upon Hull;
Larkin land,
full or Tigers, Robins and Airlie birds,
and parks and memories of Quakers as great as the Frys,
not the Whitefriars
nor the rare Blackfriars
nor those of the Land Of Green Ginger,
but Reckitts and Ferens,
Needlers and Sizers
bobbers and jobbers
dockers and packers
trawlermen and lightermen,
independent spirits one and all.
Hull is a king's town.
Let no-one put us down!

THIS IS 'ULL

The firm leatherette feel of well rolled tarmac
and it’s once warmed smell,
and the blackened knees and hands
of interaction
are familiar prints in my galleried mind.
A grey playmate;
a giver of second-hand chewy
and ciggie ends,
uniquely flavoured
but eagerly sought for secondary use
or swops.

Our street,
our Hull street
was our street,
not for Courtney street's gang,
not Mucky Buckies
nor Montrose's
it was our Upton Street,
a dead end street
of clean houses
of clean people
in clean beds
and mucky, happy kids.

Hull was a small place
till I was 11 but I never knew it,
our world was our street,
our wood yard at the dead end
our "farreey" across the drain
where trains and girls could be explored
in equal measure,
ducking down in the long grass
if anyone came.

I didn't know that I lived in a city called Hull,
but I knew my friends,
their parents and Johnny Greensides
who owned the only car.
and the original Mitchell brothers
on their rocker bikes,
hero’s in leather and white scarves.

I was happy in Hull.
I am again happy in Hull.
Even the immigrants are happy in Hull
’cos we are Hull,
we are Kingston Upon Hull
and proud,
proud to know most people;
southerners and media,
even Yorkshire folk
don't really know us well,
'cos 'ull is our secret,
a hoard of decent friends.

Anlaby and I am digging it man!

I know that the “village” I live in has at least 1100 years of history and that at one time it had a castle (long gone) of its own, but the minutiae of history has never gripped me. We won wars, we lost a few, we invented many things and kick-started the world’s industrial revolution; we, the peoples of Great Britain: the “Brits”, the “English” (an inclusive substitute for the Welsh, Scots, Irish and English) have done quite a bit in history, but that’s just “history” right? 

No!

Not today, for today I found my very own bit of history and what’s more it’s in my own back yard and I know that for I dug it up. A commonplace discovery finally fired a desire to learn some history – the minutiae of some history.

It was the day to dig-out the root ball and stump of a felled tree and so reluctantly I started. Dig dig dig, boring boring boring, aching aching aching and then time for lunch. Then more digging and a reward that was as unexpectedly pleasurable as it was unexpected.

I struck a brick in the soil about 1 foot (30cm) down and not being able to break it I decided to dig to its left: another brick. Left again and another brick; a little further North and another brick, with the same to the South. I had decided to dig-out the tree from hell, but things quickly got better when I realised this tree must have grown up against the side of a building, a pretty big one at that for the building’s wall had not yielded at all: the tree had a flat-edged stump underground and all its major roots headed in the same direction. With that knowledge the tree was quickly excised, revealing a redbrick façade 4 bricks deep. Wow – my first bit of interesting history!

With the tree conquered and dying on the lawn I reviewed my options: to fill in the hole and start on the next stump or pretend I was looking for every root.

I scraped the top of the bricks I had exposed thus far, confirmed they were of the same level and an hour later, all aching gone, I had my own piece of history: a brick built wall 4 bricks wide and at least 4 bricks deep underground. I exposed a 3 foot section and on its inside (for the tree must have been outside) a brick paving, of which I have currently exposed about 4 square feet. I am guessing it is a floor of the structure as it too is level.

The thickness of the wall, the brick size and the depth of the footing suggest a big old building, perhaps a farm building as this area is still agricultural. It appears to run across our garden with the “paving” toward the end of the garden, but only more digging will tell the truth. A few hours searching on the Net may reveal some local history and hopefully a map, but I will report on this again.

P.S. My back was killing me!

UPDATE 10/11/2023:

Sourced from "Anlaby: The History Of An East Yorkshire Village 867-2000" by an Anlaby resident called Renton Heathcote.

A 9th century Danish "Jarl" or military commander named Anlaf decided he wanted to settle with his men in this area, so in 867 he agreed with "ealdorman" (high ranking official(s) at nearby Beverley, that he would create a new permanent settlement on unoccupied land between the port (then) of Hessle and Cottingham (now the largest village in the UK), and that his men be allowed to choose wives from these and two other nearby villages (still here) of Weighton and Riplingham.

In return the Danes cleared the chosen land and thereafter called it Anlafby, becoming Anlafsbyr and finally Anlaby over subsequent history; they had to agree to "behave themselves" by respecting other people (Danes) similarly granted rights of settlement in what became known as Willerby (Villaby), Skidby, Tranby and Ferriby (then a port for a ferry across the Humber estuary to the South). 

The suffix "by" or  "byr" meant farms of, though all of these settlements are predated by an ancient administrating settlement called Wyke (four miles to the East), centuries later renamed Kingston-Upon-Hull (the Kings town upon the river Hull) in 1299,  following the grant of a royal wool trade charter. This is now the 16th largest city in the UK. (This video tries to clarify the origin of place names.)

Anlaf's direct descendants (the Anlabys) became one of the two dominant aristocratic families in the area (the others were Normans - the Legards). In the 19th Century, when Kingston-Upon-Hull's  seaport started to flourish, rich merchants looked to live beyond there and between 1800 and 1900 the population of Anlaby grew by 500 to 800.   Now it is home to a few thousand.

This is the ultra rare "definitive" history of Anlaby village in East Yorkshire. Written by a local, Renton Heathcote, it was a private pressing.

To this day Anlaf's founder status remains recognised by the name of a central Anlaby street called Anlafgate. 

Here's what contributors to Wikipedia have to say about Anlaby