Beverley to Kingston upon Hull 22/05/15

11.6 miles, via Beverley Beck and the River Hull.

Having not had to drop any days from my schedule on my Trail to the Coast has left me with a day free for a bonus walk, and it makes sense to make for the East Riding's other coast, and to the big city too, not least because a red route presents itself to guide me through this flat landscape. So get an early start from Beverley station at 9.15am, and I'll allow myself a few moments to admire the canopy roof, signal box and station house before moving away down Armstrong Way, and on to Flemingate, where the former industrial sites are getting redeveloped into a new shopping centre, which suggests that this town is in definitely in good health. This leads me to Beckside, now free of the road works that had blighted it all week (finally allowing view of the statue of a dock worker), and beyond lies Beverley Beck, the tidal channel which brought to outside word to the town for many centuries, canalised in 1802 and fuelling the relative industrial boom of the town in that period. Once even boatbuilding took place along this riverside, but now all the signs of industry have passed, the beck forming a starting point for leisure boating and the warehouse and dock buildings having gone to be replaced by apartments and a mid range waterside redevelopment, 'like Bruges' according to my Mother, but all feeling a bit airless and inert to me. Push on along recently developed path on the north side, under the A1174 relief road and into the countryside, thankfully on the other side of the beck from the anglers but having to negotiate the narrow road between boatyard and council depot, leading on to the crossing of the Beverley & Barmston drain, and passing across the flood lock at the small marina at the beck's end.

Hit the flood embankment of the Hull and start off southwards on the west bank alongside the pastures, greeting the dog walkers and seeing the only pleasure boaters of the day disappearing ahead of me, and so push on alone for a long stretch, seeing no evidence of other flood management on this river, and suffering a sharp pain in my calf that makes me think that this might be one of those days. Along the way of the Hull bank, we pass the fishing lake at Barmston Farm, the very pleasant locale where we have been residing for the week, meeting a guard dog who carefully shepherds me away from Kenley Reach farm, finding many horses grazing the embankment at Prospect farm, and the most awful mix of cow parsley, thistles and nettles choking the embankment all the way down to Sicey Farm, and all this time the river seems to flow upstream, as the tide is still pushing it all these miles inland. Signs of the outer edge of Kingston upon Hull soon emerge, and I wonder why people seem to forget to use its full name (first town created by royal charter in the country, after all!), and the Kingswood development is growing houses all the way out to the city boundary, and it's a lot to urban life to see after missing the hamlets of Weel, Thearne and Dunswell, and barely getting a view of the village of Wawne. Push on down to the A1033, and its pair of Bascule bridges, and then the whole of the city starts to emerge, recent outer suburbs and out of town developments below the embankments, a pleasant green space around Haworth Hall, and followed by older suburban semis before the Sutton Road bridge, which suggest the risk of flood on the Hull has not manifested itself recently.

Playing fields and a nature reserve give me more greenery than I was anticipating for a while, but industry soon moves to the riverside, never to relinquish it, passing a pair of chemical works with that unmistakeable smell of fractured hydrocarbons, as well as a barge having waste piped into it. The bankside walk then starts to get challenging, getting narrow and far too close the wall of an adjoining scrapyard, before subtly shifting from the hard ground and onto the much softer bank of alluvial mud, held together with many weeds but still feeling ever so slightly dicey, so it's good to get of it at the A1165, where another pair of Bascules dominate the scene. Road walking follows, down bankside through scenes of post industrial landscape, passing under the river bridge and only major surviving remnant of the Hull & Barnsley railway, checking out the tall post-use industrial buildings and the church lost in this milieu before coming upon the Wilmington swing bridge, which once took the NER to Withernsea. Wincolmlee, a road, shadows the river and light industry still occupies it, offering a few old warehouses but no sign of anything non industrial until we meet the Hull Charterhouse, and We are in the city once across the A165. Down Dock Office Row and High Street, and it's remarkable that so much of the 18th century port seems to have survived after Nazi bombers and town planners did so much to chance the face of the city, and it all deserves further attention, but I've got a target to meet beyond the A63 and the tidal surge barrier. I'm struck just how much the Hull splits the city in half, and wonder how such an unregarded river could hold so much influence, but soon we are at the outspill into the Humber estuary, and across the Millennium bridge can be found My Parents, bless them, to greet me as I arrive at 1.55pm, and despite the risk of coming up lame today, I've still got three more hours in my legs to take in The Deep, arguably the best aquarium in these isles.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1686.2 miles
2015 Cumulative Total: 284 miles
Up Country Total: 1559.8 miles
Solo Total: 1447.2 miles

Beverley Railway Station, interior. I could go on and on about
how much I love this building, indeed I think I already have!

Beverley Beckside. A nice attempt to do riverside dwelling
in the heart of East Yorkshire, but somehow lacking in brio.

Beverley Beck marina. Yes, someone has dolled up their barge to look like a submarine.

Barmston Farm fishing lake. Our cottage is behind the tin shed
and the wall of conifers, and I'd rate it 8/10. If the Wolds Way
comes calling in 2016, I think we could be coming back here.

Challenging going on the Hull bank up to Sicey Farm.

The Hull approaching the A1033.

Sutton Road bridge, Kingston Upon Hull.

Chemical works on the Hull Bank, greenery and bad smells in equal measure!

The A1165 bascules. You do have to wonder how often they get opened?

British Extracting Co building. Not only do you wonder what it might have been
used for in the past, you honestly have to wonder if it can have any kind of future?

The Hull from Jenning Street. As the river splits the town so thoroughly,
you wonder if there's an East-West split in the mentality of the city too?

High Street, Kingston Upon Hull. An oasis of the 18th century in a largely
20th century city, the museum quarter demands future attention, for
the city's maritime heritage and the works of William Wilberforce.

The Hull meets the Humber, and The Deep welcomes you.

Next Up: Back to the West Riding for a complete change of focus.