19th February, 2020 Myton 6.

On 12th January, 2012 I took some photos of wild plants that have the potential to flower throughout the 12 months of the year. Although struggling to cope with a hard morning frost the daisies above would have opened their petals given the rays of low-angled sunlight that were soon to follow.

For the issue as to whether or not the berewick of Myton had a chapel of ease allied to All Saints church, Hessle evidence is slim. The Meaux Abbey Chronicle (s.p.b.s) records the destruction of a chapel of Myton in 1204 (let’s remember that Abbot Burton was composing his Chronicle in the early 1400s) – its precise location is not given but as the emerging trading settlement of Wyk was still in Myton it could have been a predecessor to Holy Trinity and on the same site (in-church archaeology would be a fascinating exercise in many churches – St Peter’s, Barton on Humber remains the most thoroughly excavated church site in Britain, the findings having been written-up by Professor Warwick Rodwell, the two volumes being published a few years ago).

Dr. John Bilson writing in 1928 Wyke upon Hull in 1293 (I take this fact from a leaflet on Holy Trinity Church, I have never seen this publication) claimed that the present church was the third on the site, the building programme of the present church having been started in the 1310s and the consecration of the completed building taking place on 10/3/1425. It was only early in the reign of Charles II that Holy Trinity was afforded the status of independent parish church and from the late 18th century as Hull’s physical expansion burst beyond the remains of the medieval town walls the parish of Holy Trinity got bigger while that of Hessle got smaller.

As with most church rebuilds or replacements the building programme started at the east end and ended at the west end, or in this case with the construction of the crossing tower. Some of the bricks of the chancel and transepts are thus some of the earliest surviving examples of brick construction, unfortunately most of the bricks seen today are later examples dating from repair work.

(to be continued).