The ‘ruins’ were clearly meant to suggest a pre-modern building such as a church, manor house or monastic ruin. However, were they genuine? No evidence exists in council minutes that I have seen as to their origin although the ‘ruins’ are just so-called in the Committee minutes of the late 1920s. Were they, possibly, artificial stone (s.p.b.s) made for the purpose (the Committee reference is more focused on creating the flower beds around the ‘ruins’ than the ‘ruins’ themselves).
I have heard of a handed-down notion that they were from the site of a derelict church nearby, this is not supported by any other evidence I know of, a remote possibility being if the early 19th century chapel of ease to Cottingham church, St. John’s Newland, had a late-medieval predecessor which would have been the parish church of Newland community. Again I know of no other supporting evidence. However, it is surprising how many remnants of derelict churches there are around the region – a source of study perhaps.
Where are the ruins now? Dust or stored?
Thought-provoking artifacts were thought appropriate in municipal parks. Three examples in Kingston upon Hull were, anchors, rocks and tanks. The anchors had invariably been dredged-up from the bed of the North Sea by trawler nets and donated by ship’s captains. Perhaps from a bygone wreck, perhaps from a ship whose anchor chain had been broken in a storm (for evidence of such events see the history of Withernsea and Hornsea’s piers). Large stones were also sometimes dredged-up, how did they come to be there? Almost certainly deposited by retreating ice sheets, some being Norwegian granite in origin, and subsequently ’rounded’ by marine abrasion. Costello Park and Oak Road Playing Fields each have a collection of four such stones. The ‘tanks’ were by then out-of-date Mark 3 and Mark 4 ‘tanks’ from the Great War. Initially thought appropriate as marks of respect to the soldiers who fought, died or were seriously injured in the conflict, by the late 1920s opinions were changing and the rusting hulks taken away for scrap.
I may end my my sortie into Victoriana at this point and return to ‘It’s the Trees’ (s.p.b.s)