‘The Town hath yet greate Privileges with a Mair and Bailives: but wher it had yn Edwarde the 3 Dayes many good Shippes and riche Marchaunts, now there be but a few Botes and no Marchauntes of any Estimation.... Treuth is that when Hulle began to flourish, Heddon decaied.’
No doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was scarcely less disastrous to the town’s prosperity than its advance had been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
The exterior of the church is much discoloured and weathered, suggesting that in places an excess of moisture reaches the walls. Inside, too, there is an atmosphere of neglect, perhaps caused by the need of funds for the proper maintenance of the beautiful building. No great cost would be entailed, however, in keeping the churchyard tidy; and the old shoes, the empty pots, and other litter near the east end, might be removed at a trifling expense. Great Driffield keeps its churchyard as a well-ordered garden, Hedon with less care than is devoted to its green. Surely the ‘Mair and Bailives,’ armed with the mace they believe to be the most ancient in the country, would do well to go in procession to the churchyard, and, having made a careful examination of the litter and counted the tin cans and old shoes, make an urgent report to the incumbent.
The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle colours we saw at Patrington.
In Preston Church, a mile to the north, are the richly carved fragments of an alabaster Easter sepulchre, or possibly a reredos, found during the restoration in 1880.
In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, founded by Edward I. at the close of the thirteenth century.
It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century; and Hull, despite its interesting history, lays no claim to even the smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets, where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is practically all.
When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled the winding streets—the windmills, the churches and monasteries—we understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in Lowgate opposite St. Mary’s Church. Nothing remains of this great brick mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII. during his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary’s Church has been so largely rebuilt and restored that its interest is much diminished.
The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is, therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period. The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with brick—no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of the city. Of the walls, besieged in a half-hearted fashion during the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ trouble, and in a most determined fashion during the Civil War, nothing remains, and, our interest slackening, we suddenly realize that we have been long enough in this shipping city. It is not altogether easy to leave Hull behind, for Hessle, four miles further on, is in the suburban area. Sutton-in-Holderness, to the north, is a pretty hamlet threatened by the skirmishers of the city. In the church is a fine tomb of one of the Lords of Sutton, who owned the place almost from Domesday times until the days when Kingston-upon-Hull began to appear. A most instructive volume devoted to this one village has been written by the late Mr. Thomas Blashill.