The best way to appreciate the old Green Lane (Oak Road), apart from the short section on Air St., is to walk along the western edge of Oak Rd. Playing Fields from the small car-park on Beverley High Rd. to the information board (s.p.b.) at the end of Beresford Avenue, and then on south beside the allotments to Clough Rd. The photo above (which should be portrait) shows a small section, this taken before the spring surge in growth over the past month. With a bit of imagination it is like a journey into the past.
The information board (s.p.b.) deals with various things relevant to the history of the area. An extract from an early trade directory shows that ‘cowkeepers’ were common to the area providing a daily milk supply to Hull (s.p.b.s on Sculcoates).
The notes accompanying the picture of Henry VIII refer to his travelling to Hull from Beverley during his Northern Progress of 1541 when at least some of his entourage would have travelled along Green Lane.
There is a reference too to the English Civil Wars of the 1640s (s.p.b.s).
There is a reference to the Second World War when ‘trenches were dug on the playing fields to prevent the landing of enemy small aircraft/gliders’. The Kingston Rowing Club building (beside the River Hull and now derelict) was bomb damaged with the nearby Croda site being a prime target’, ‘during the War the chemical works produced glycerine which was an important ingredient of high explosives’. Although the chemical works was occasionally hit production was able to continue.
(to be continued).