On the recent ‘houses’ walk round Pearson Park one thing we noted was that all the properties we looked at had roofs of Welsh slate. 90% of roofing slates come from the mines and quarries of the Snowdonia region of North Wales and are characterised by being grey, although can be of varying shades. Where slates have a more greeny colour they are likely to have been quarried in the Lake District. By the mid 19th century the Welsh slate industry was being commercialised, and although still remote this industry was soon to be helped by the emerging national rail network. Slates for the roofs in Hull from the 1860s onwards would have come to the opposite side of the country by rail or around the coast by coastal tramp steamer. This was to soon lead to a decline in vernacular roofing materials such as straw or reed thatch.
The photo above is from the collection of early postcard photos sometimes sold by the Friends of Pearson Park, Hull (but mostly undated). It shows a section of the lake edge with the ironstone obelisk in the same position as today, benches also, but with an ‘arbour’ where today stands the refreshment hut. An arbour was a common feature of early municipal parks and was a shelter in which to sit, sometimes with wooden sides, sometimes not. It was common for them to be built so as to have a ‘rustic’ appearance, here a thatched roof although the colour added to the original black and white has given it an odd tint.
It is a small irony that just as vernacular building materials were disappearing for new houses they were the fashion in the parks.
(to be continued).