Incidentally it is six years to the day that I was flooded-out at South Ferriby – 6-30pm – and now I live on another floodplain!
Have for some years been a member of Hessle Local History Soc., Hessle being now a suburb of west Hull but still in the unitary authority of the East Riding of Yorkshire, as it was in the former county of the East Yorkshire when an entirely separate (from Hull) community (see The History of Hessle Common (south-west Hull) in the Articles and Publications section of this website). This year I haven’t got to a single public meeting of the Society, a fact made more regrettable when reading articles about the talks in their recent Newsletter (cover page see above).
Back in July members of the Society were entertained by a virtual tour of Willerby (another Hull suburb, once a village) which, as well as including the period buildings, reached into the surrounding farmland to the site of Haltemprice Augustinian priory founded in the early 14th century. It sounded really instructive.
The article summarising Ian Wilkinson’s talk on certain aspects of Hessle municipal cemetery made for excellent reading. As well as outlining the early history of the site, and later extensions, Ian had thoroughly researched the biographies of a collection of the people commemorated by certain monuments in the cemetery. This is one aspect of cemetery studies (for another see the article that includes a history of Barton Cemetery in the Articles and Publications section of this website). The figures shown in relief in the picture above are of Lydia Stather and her husband and were said to be ‘remarkably lifelike’.
Michael Free, Treasurer of Hessle Local History Society, also spoke of Lydia along with other persons significant in the history of Hessle. This talk also was composed of a series of potted biographies and, as with all Michael’s presentations, must have been preceded by a great deal of research.
Well done Hessle Local History Society.