East Parade and Hook Hall

 And suddenly it's autumn. It has been wet, the leaves on the fig tree are coming off and many of our apples -Yorkshire Cockpits have fallen. History classes  have started and last Wednesday I took a group of Ukrainian teenagers who were visiting Howden around the town. Not certain how much of the history they took in but the sun was shining and they took lots of photos.

Our chickens are still moulting and look a bit bedraggled but we are still getting a few eggs. I have just today bought them two bags of feed as they need a bit extra in cold weather.  I have always liked having a few chickens. My grandparents  in Eastrington [Robert and Elsie Nurse] had a poultry farm on Sandholme Road and supplied many families from Hull who came on the train to buy chickens. I can  just remember the smell of the paraffin incubators.

I have been busy looking at two topics recently. Our very active Thursday morning class looks mainly at Goole history and we normally have a project that we all try to contribute to. This term we have decided to look at Banks Terrace and East Parade. Banks Terrace and the Banks Arms Hotel [the Lowther after 1835] were named after the civil engineer Edward Banks.

http://www.howdenshirehistory.co.uk/goole/jolliffe-banks-engineers.html

Banks Terrace was at the side of the Lowther  and was demolished in the 1880s to make way for Victoria Dock. 

It was built around 1830 and one of the first occupants was Dr William Eden Cass, Goole's first doctor. He saw Goole through two severe outbreaks of cholera and his family lived there for 54 years. He wrote a fascinating account of his time aboard a Hull whaling ship while he was a student. He died in 1890.

William Eden Cass, Goole's first doctor

East Parade was demolished, apart from the Peacock on the end, in 1974. It faced the river and this romanticised lithograph of it from 1862 shows how the Aire and Calder Navigation Co designed their planned town to be impressive when viewed from a ship.

The other topic I am working on is the history of Hook. I am giving a talk to Hook WI in early November and although I have quite a lot of pictures I have been looking at the earlier days of Hook Hall, the people of the village and of course the Sotheron family. 

I attended a fascinating talk recently given by Rona Dickinson about Admiral Frank Sotheron who had a distinguished naval career, was something of a diplomat and who knew and associated with many prominent people of the time including his naval colleague Admiral Nelson.

Although born at Darrington Frank Sotheron owned Hook Hall and sold the land on which the new port of Goole was built to the Navigation Company.

Hook Hall in  June1911, celebrations for the coronation of GeorgeV

Local history is fascinating - but it is as well to remember the connections with wider events.