22nd April, 2018. A Place of Resort, 2.

Between early 1882 and late 1884 Hull City Council made great strides forward in its intention to provide for its population ‘places of resort’. The Parks Committee focused its attention on finding and purchasing land suitable for a public park on the eastern and western fringes of the then town, ‘suitable site … in the East and West Districts for the use of the people as and for a Public Park’ (Parks Committee 1882-1884 minutes in ‘Miscellaneous Committees, Book 4).

Although the Holderness House Estate offered 48 acres of ‘most beautifully timbered land’ off Holderness Road with the option of building an access station on the nearby Hull-Hornsea Railway line, the preferred option of the Committee was to buy land offered by the Trustees of the Ann Watson Charity and part of the adjoining (east) Summergangs Farm (Corporation Farm). I suspect the land of the Holderness House Estate was the land later built on by James Reckitt to create the model village which remains today a fine, green area. By Feb. 1883 it had been decided to buy the land for the future East Park from the Charity and part of the Corporation Farm, it being described in the minutes as ‘A more picturesque locality of that extent it would be impossible to find on the eastern side of the Borough, or one more adapted to restore the jaded energies of the artisan or man of business when the labours of the day are ended’. Part of the Borough’s plan was to reserve 26 acres (of the 76 acre total) for peripheral building sites which should ‘command a good price for residences of a high class’.

This had been done at the establishment of Pearson Park on the then northern edge of the growing town some 20 years earlier. The large, mostly detached, mock-gothic properties surrounding Pearson Park survive still albeit sometimes in a poor state of repair. The same layout plan was incorporated into proposals for West Park, the arrangements for which were being discussed in Committee at the same time as for East Park. In the proposals for West Park only the land alongside Walton Street was earmarked for high-status housing. In fact no such house-building took place, the linear space eventually becoming the site of a succession of bowling greens which, along with a clubhouse, remain today – see picture above.

Further discussion of the evolution of West Park next time.