Author name: Richard Clarke

The picture above is one of three grainy images of West Park, Hull copied from One Hundred and Twenty-One Views of Hull and District, c.1910, this publication reproduced as Malet Lambert Local History Reprint, Extra Volume No. 82. The volume also contains early photos of East, Pearson and Pickering Parks (in the last case only […]

As regards the early development of Hull’s West Park it needs to be recorded straightway that in 2011 Paul Gibson published his excellent booklet on this topic (cover-page see above). In May 1882 the Minutes of Hull Corporation’s Parks Committee, 1882-1884, record that a sub-committee was formed to search for a ‘suitable site … in

As with many public parks around the country created in the mid-to-late 19th century, at Pearson Park, Hull the intention was to sell-off plots of land around the perimeter of the land allocated to the park for ‘villa development’, often envisaged for relatively large detached (although terraces/semis survive beside Pearson Park) period houses and where proximity to the

As is probably the case with most public parks around the country Pearson Park, Hull is a pale image of its former self in terms of ‘fixtures and fittings’ in the Park, although this should not detract from their ongoing value and simply reflects the fact that local authorities now have a wider spectrum of

With Pearson Park, established in 1860, being Hull’s first public park, when West and East Parks were being established in the 1880s it was referred to as ‘The Park’ in the minutes of the Parks and Recreation Grounds Committee which may be viewed in the reference room of Hull History Centre. Many features of Hull’s later

Oak Road Playing Fields (see picture above) is one of my favourite areas in Hull and leads me into my final ‘features’ of public parks section, that being Recreation Grounds/Playing Fields. It must be stated at the outset that the southern end of the site has been, and still is, one of intense police activity