HULL AND BEVERLEY.
THE HUMBER AT HULL.
ENTRANCE-GATE, BEVERLEY.
Following the Trent down to the Humber, and turning towards the sea, we come to the noted seaport of Hull, or, as it is best known in those parts, Kingston-upon-Hull. While not possessing great attractions for the ordinary tourist, yet Hull ranks as the third seaport of England, being second only to London and Liverpool. It is the great packet-station for the north of Europe, with steam lines leading to Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and the Baltic, most of the English trade with those countries being centred at Hull. It is a town of extreme activity, its docks being all the time crowded with shipping, and its location, practically upon an island, with the river Humber on the south, the river Hull upon the east, and docks upon the northern and western sides, giving it every maritime convenience. The docks, though inferior to those of Liverpool, are the chief feature of the town. The Hull River itself forms a natural dock about a mile and a half long, and from this a chain of other docks leads through the warehouses and the town to the Humber. Hull possesses the Trinity House, one of the three ancient establishments in England—the others being at London and Newcastle—which were founded first as a religious fraternity in the fourteenth century, and became afterwards establishments for the relief of distressed and decayed seamen and their families. The present Trinity House building was erected in the last century. The chief ornament of Hull is the Wilberforce Monument, a pillar of sandstone seventy-two feet high, erected about a half century ago, and surmounted by a statue of the celebrated philanthropist. He was born on High Street August 24, 1759, this being the most important thoroughfare in ancient Hull, but now a narrow and inconvenient lane following the right bank of the Hull River. Here were in former days the houses of the great Hull merchants, and the Wilberforce House is about halfway down the street. It is a curious specimen of brickwork, of a style said to have been imported from Flanders in the reign of William and Mary. It is a low, broad house with a surmounting tower over the doorway. Hull has little else of interest in the way of buildings. Its Holy Trinity Church, in the market-place, is the largest parish church in England, having recently been thoroughly restored, and the Town Hall, built in the Italian style, with a clock-tower, is its finest edifice of modern construction.
HOUSE WHERE WILBERFORCE WAS BORN.
We have now come into Yorkshire, and a few minutes' ride northward by railway along the valley of the Hull River brings the visitor to Beverley, an old-fashioned Yorkshire town of considerable antiquity, eight miles from the seaport. This was anciently a walled town, but of the entrance-gates only one survives, the North Bar, of the time of Edward III. It is a good specimen of brick architecture, with mouldings and niches upon the surface and battlements at the top. This is a favorite old town for the retired merchant and tradesman who wish to pass the declining years of life in quiet, and it contains many ancient buildings of interest. Several of these are clustered around the picturesque market-square, which is an enclosure of about four acres, and contains a quaint cross, a relic of the time when it was customary to build market-crosses. These ancient crosses, which were practically canopies erected over a raised platform, were generally used as pulpits by the preachers when conducting religious services in the open air. Sometimes they were memorials of the dead. We are told that there were formerly five thousand of these crosses of various kinds in England, but most of them were destroyed in the Civil Wars. At these old crosses proclamations used to be read and tolls collected from the market-people. The covered market-cross at Beverley was one of the last that was erected. The name of this interesting town is said to be derived from Beaver Lake, the site having at one time been surrounded by lakes that were formed by the overflowing of the Humber, in which beavers lived in great numbers. The Beverley Minster is an attractive Gothic church, and from the tops of its towers there is an excellent view over the rich and almost level valley through which the Hull River flows. Leconfield Castle, in the suburbs, was an ancient residence of the Percys, of which the moat alone remains.
MARKET-SQUARE, BEVERLEY.