Hessle memories
Here are memories of Hessle and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Hessle or a Hessle photo.
Childhood Holidays
My grandparents lived in a cottage fronting the River Humber where the Humber Bridge is now. My grandfather worked in the whitening mill near what was then called LITTLE SWITZERLAND. It is now, I believe, a country park. Their name was DIXON and they were my late mother's parents. We used to spend our holidays there every year, including the war years, and I can remember the light ship nearly opposite the cottage. We used to attend what was the United Methodist Church in Hessle village. I still have happy memories of these years and have walked many times along the foreshore towards Ferriby, seeing the small boats moored alongside.
Choir
Hessle church was and is an example of fine architecture with one of the finest organs in the county. I joined the church choir and attended most services, we were paid for something we enjoyed. I remember weddings paid a half crown each. The church was well set for sound, the congregation could hear every word. When the organ was undergoing restoration the front pipes were taken away, some say they were stolen. The organist at that time was Raymond Taylor, he also owned the tobacconist shop opposite the church hall. The vicar was Rev Hutton and Mr Reeveley was the verger. I was christened and married at this church, I have fond memories of it.
Sunday Afternoon
I would walk through the rose gardens after church and Sunday school.
ORDER BOY
I was order boy for quite a few proprietors, one being Mallorys in Prestongate. This photo is slightly earlier.
The Haven
I spent many happy hours down at the Haven, fishing and playing in general. I also collected coke from the gas house round the corner down what was then the weigh bridge, dodging the steam from the locomotives.
Foreshore
I walked and played down here. My aunty and uncle owned one of the house boats nearby and my father worked at Marshalls quarry/mill for a while. The area has changed a lot ,mostly to car parking. We rode our bikes round Little Swits and often visited Humberfield quarry to watch the train come out of the tunnel. There isn't much left of any of it now.
Holidays
We used to go to Hull to visit relatives. My mam and dad had friends who used to have a shop on the front in Hessle. I went to Little Switzerland as it was called. One year we went there and a man had a barbeque, he put chickens on it, I think he kept them. I spent happy days watching the boats go by too. My mam's friend's names was Harry Marshall, they had 2 boys named Rowland and Malcolm after my brothers. We lived in south Wales.
Foreshore Houseboats
In the early 1950's walking past the little white cottage that is now The Country Park Inn, towards Ferriby, one could see a selection of little ships (Puffers) pulled up high & dry on the river bank. that were used as houseboats. At weekends, visitors to these little boats could be seen painting them, and charging batteries with wind powered car dynamos.
Behind the cottage was the Earles Cement quarry's, one, now the County Park. was connected by a tunnel that passed beneath the A63 to another quarry (to what in the 1980's became the now closed Humberfield Landfill). there had been a narrowgauge railway line through the tunnel to carry the chalk from the quarry to the works, where it was crushed & transferred to the main railway line for transport to their Cement works & rotary kiln at Wilmington.
My Childhood to Adulthood
I was born at Hesslewood Nursing Home in 1939 and lived in Kingston Avenue. The schools I went to were the infants school in Swinegate, Hessle County Secondary School on Boothferry Road and Tranby High School on Heads Lane which is or was a very old converted mansion and I think it was once owned by a gentleman who was a survivor of the Titanic. During my years of 11 to 15 I delivered the evening papers starting at Swinegate and finishing my round at Edward Street. Mum used to make some sandwiches for me so that Icould go to Hessle Square and wait for the coaches to take myself and other children to their respective places to do potato picking, and sometimes you were very disheartened if you had not been chosen to go. I also used to go to Pearts Bakery which was opposite the Plaza cinema (which is now a supermarket) and ride a tricycle with a square box on the front and deliver the hot cakes in a morning to... Read more
Memories of North Humberside
I Used to Cycle There
I used to live in Carr Lane which was only a short walk across (at that time) an open field, to visit these shops. Comics and penny sweets in the newsagent, where I also paid in to my Post Office Savings account, then later withdrew when I had enough to buy an Airfix model. My mother shopped at the co-op which was several shops to the left and there was a fish-and-chip shop roughly in the middle of the picture.
One of the shop keepers had painted a notice on his window, using a white paint that was easy to rub off the glass with just a finger, saying he had "Boiling Fowl". As delinquents my friends and I just had to alter it to "oili owl".
My Travels With Mom
Travels brought me to my Auntie and Uncle's house above the Beauty Shop looking straight onto the photo. I loved them so much and their daughter, my cousin. I haven't seen them in years...don't know why. But this was always my favorite spot in England. I loved the Chip Shop. I had a good friend named Colin who lived here, he wrote me a beautiful poem that was so sweet.
My First Visit to Barton-Upon-Humber by Richard B. Taylor
My first visit to Barton-upon-Humber was in the early 1980s when my wife and I were searching for the graves of my ancestors. To our dismay, someone had removed all of the headstones and they were placed in a corner of the church yard in disarray. they were so heavy we could not move one to find evidence of our ancestors.
My next visit was with my youngest daughter, just prior to her marriage to David Dyches in 1987. She purchased a set of beautiful dinnerware at the China shop in the middle of town.
I am proud of the fact that my ancestors lived in such a pleasant town and I have submitted a chart of our family tree to the Barton-upon-Humber library.
Richard B. Taylor
Boating on The Lake
The photo above, of the two Lads on the lake is of my Brother Graham and I. I can`t remember it myself but apparently, Graham tells me, he was fed up because he wasn`t allowed to drive the boat as he was too small.
My First And Last Jobs in Hull
This is a photo of the Derringham Branch of the Hull Savings Bank where I started as a junior bank clerk at the age of 16 on 31st August 1965, probably around the time when this photo was taken. It certainly looks right.
This was my first job after leaving Riley High School, just down the road from the bank. The heating in the building was powered by a big coal fired boiler in the cellar and one of my main tasks was to shovel coal down the coal chute and stoke the boiler, not what I had expected when I had applied for a job as a bank clerk and all this for the princely salary of £325 a year.
What a lovely buiding this was, especially in 1965. Polished wood panelling everywhere; solid mahogany counter; highly polished (and dangerously slippery!) parquet floors where the staff worked and a beautiful mosaic floor in the customer area with the Kingston Upon Hull three crowns crest set... Read more
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