The opening of Pickering Park and accompanying alms-houses in 1911, and the inter-war Gipsyville council estate (an estate the lay-out plans of which incorporated the principles of the Garden Village movement) pushed the urbanisation of Hessle Common west of the Hessle Road railway crossing, at least on the north side of Hessle High Road. From Pickering Road west the process was completed first by speculative ribbon development alongside the three post-Enclosure roads (Pickering, Anlaby Park South and First Lane Roads) followed by inter-war speculative built housing and post-war local authority housing. To the south of Hessle High Road the urban sprawl westward was blocked for some while by the continuation of the vast marshalling yards, but with those gone late 20th century housing estates and retail park continued to the boundary of Hessle parish and the boundary with the East Riding of Yorkshire.
From the earliest historic time the natural vegetation of the estuarine tidal lowlands would have been compromised by being common grazing land, this in turn requiring a linear clay-bank to hold back all but the spring tides each lunar month. Intensive grazing of the flocks of Meaux Abbey across the manor of Myton would have required the same environment across the eastern-most extent of Hessle Common.
The stages whereby this extensive lowland was urbanised across three centuries are common to the history of many such areas, locally and nationally. My story is not exactly the story of suburbanisation as it has not included the development of the once-upon-a-time villages now transformed into suburbs, but it does recount the changes from rural to urban across the land between the primary commercial centre and the villages that are now suburbs.
Image = photo of one of the hundreds of terraces north of St. Andrew’s Dock, courtesy of Hull History Centre.