It is hard to find any evidence today of the time when Stoneferry was a rural community separate from the expanding town of Hull. Two sets of terraces of working class (possibly managerial) housing provide an insight into why the rural settlement of Stoneferry began to expand; one a terrace of substantial working class houses with a central communal archway to the rear of the properties on the River Hull side of the southern end of West Carr Lane, and the other a series of terraces with ample front and rear gardens on the north side of Leads Road. The first of these looks as though it might be an industrial terrace (that is built by an employer, whether public or private, for selected employees to rent), the second more likely to have been speculative housing (that is built by a builder or his client to generate a long-term income from the rental). The factor common to both housing developments must surely have been the ‘ribbon’ industrial development northwards from the ‘Old Harbour’ during the 19th century (mentioned in earlier blogs on the development of Sculcoates), with riverside first Industrial Revolution factories served by barges and lighters sailing the transport artery of the River Hull.
Goodwill and Lawson’s ‘New Plan of Hull’, dated 1869, does not extend quite as far north as Stoneferry and shows that the ribbon industrial development along the River bank had not extended much beyond the Victoria Dock Railway line. Bacon’s Plan of Hull shows that by 1906 (see above relevant extract) some industrial development had penetrated into Stoneferry although the ‘village’ with its Wesleyan chapel and School was still surrounded by post-Enclosure fields. Of the two worker’s housing developments (above) the first had by then been built and the linear plot for the second laid-out.
To the north of the ‘village’ the Stoneferry Paint Works was in operation. Other industrial sites in the locality are un-named.
(to be continued)