The photo above, taken over a year ago, shows a section of Pickering Park just inside the main gates off Hessle High Road. It shows the location of a very good information panel, the park keeper’s house and various trees with the two sycamore either side of the drive definitely planted when the Park was first developed c.1909. The very ornate wrought iron gates were especially designed by Christopher Pickering and manufactured by the same firm that made the main gates at West Park, these long-gone and now an open plan entrance area off Anlaby Road. Pickering is said to have donated £1000 for the gates alone.
Christopher Pickering, 1842-1920, was Hull born and started work on the fish dock when he left school. This, by the way, cannot have been St. Andrew’s Fish Dock which did not open until 1883. As a result of good business decisions, by the 1880s he was the joint owner of a fleet of new steam trawlers and joint owner of a fish and ice merchants. In 1889 he moved from Coltman St. Hull to Hornsea and soon took ownership of the famous part 17th century Hall there. Like many other businessmen of Hull he was able to commute along the Hull-Hornsea rail line, a line that passed close by East Park.
Unlike T.R. Ferens (s.p.b.) he did not become a public benefactor until late in life. Between 1909 and 1914 he founded the second municipal park in West Hull (Pickering Park) by purchasing land on which the Park was developed close (then) to the border with Hessle and the East Yorkshire. He also funded terraces of rustic alms houses (surviving) either side of Pickering Park entrance, a nearby church and children’s home, as well as six alms houses in Hornsea.
(to be continued)