Kingston upon Hull
Encyclopedia
Kingston upon Hull usually referred to as Hull, is a city
and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire
, England. It stands on the River Hull
at its junction with the Humber estuary
, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea
. Hull has a resident population of . The Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) population stands at 573,300.
Renamed Kings town upon Hull by King Edward I
in 1299, the town and city of Hull has served as market town
, military supply port, trading hub, fishing and whaling centre, and industrial metropolis.
Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars
. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce
, played a key role in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
The city is unique in the UK in having had a municipally-owned telephone system from 1902, sporting cream, not red, telephone boxes
.
After suffering heavy damage during the Second World War, Hull weathered a period of post-industrial decline
, during which the city gained unfavourable results on measures of social deprivation, education and policing. In recent years the city has embarked on an extensive programme of economic regeneration, reconstruction and urban renewal. The economic crisis since 2008 has caused some setbacks to these developments.
Hull has been the base for several notable poets, including former University of Hull
Librarian Philip Larkin
, many of whose poems were set in the city. Established tourist attractions include the historic Old Town and Museum Quarter, the Marina and The Deep
, a city landmark. The redevelopment of one of Hull's main thoroughfares, Ferensway, included the opening of St. Stephen's Hull
and the new Hull Truck Theatre
. Spectator sporting activities include professional football and two rugby league
clubs. The KC Stadium
houses the football club and one rugby club.
The local accent differs markedly in its vowels from that of the rest of Yorkshire, and the rhythm of speech bears a similarity to that of Lincolnshire
, to which it was briefly linked in the defunct county of Humberside
.
. The valley of the River Hull has been inhabited since the early Neolithic period
but there is little evidence of a substantial settlement in the area of the present city. The general area was attractive to early developers because it gave access to a prosperous hinterland
and navigable rivers, but the actual site was not good, as it was remote and low-lying with no fresh water.
It was originally an outlying part of the hamlet of Myton, named Wyke. The name is thought to originate either from a Scandinavian word Vik meaning creek, or from the Saxon Wic meaning dwelling place or refuge.
The River Hull was a good haven for shipping, whose main trade was in the export of wool from the abbey. In 1293 the town was acquired from the abbey by King Edward I, who on 1 April 1299 granted it a royal charter
that renamed the settlement King's town upon Hull, or Kingston upon Hull. The charter is preserved in the archives of the city's Guildhall
.
In 1440, a further charter incorporated
the town and instituted local government consisting of a mayor, a sheriff, and twelve aldermen
.
In his Guide to Hull (1817), J.C. Craggs provides a colourful background to Edward's acquisition and naming of the town. He writes that the King and a hunting party started a hare which "led them along the delightful banks of the River Hull to the hamlet of Wyke … [Edward], charmed with the scene before him, viewed with delight the advantageous situation of this hitherto neglected and obscure corner. He foresaw it might become subservient both to render the kingdom more secure against foreign invasion, and at the same time greatly to enforce its commerce". Pursuant to these thoughts, Craggs continues, Edward purchased the land from the Abbot of Meaux, had a manor hall built for himself, issued proclamations encouraging development within the town, and bestowed upon it the royal appellation, King's Town.
The port served as a base for Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence
and later developed into the foremost port on the east coast of England. It prospered by exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine. Hull also established a flourishing commerce with the Baltic
ports as part of the Hanseatic League
.
From its mediaeval beginnings, Hull's main trading links were with Scotland and northern Europe. Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Low Countries were all key trading areas for Hull's merchants. In addition, there was trade with France, Spain and Portugal. As sail power gave way to steam, Hull's trading links extended throughout the world. Docks were opened to serve the frozen meat trade of Australia, New Zealand and South America. Hull was also the centre of a thriving inland and coastal trading network, serving the whole of the United Kingdom.
Sir William de la Pole was the town's first mayor. A prosperous merchant, de la Pole founded a family that became prominent in government. Another successful son of a Hull trading family was bishop John Alcock
, who founded Jesus College, Cambridge
and was a patron of the grammar school in Hull. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas and the town's maritime connections are thought to have played a part in the introduction of a virulent strain of syphilis
through Hull and on into Europe from the New World
.
The town prospered during the 16th and early 17th centuries, and Hull's affluence at this time is preserved in the form of several well-maintained buildings from the period, including Wilberforce House
, now a museum documenting the life of William Wilberforce
.
During the English Civil War
, Hull became strategically important because of the large arsenal
located there. Very early in the war, on 11 January 1642, the king named the Earl of Newcastle
governor of Hull while Parliament nominated Sir John Hotham
and asked his son, Captain John Hotham, to secure the town at once. Sir John Hotham and Hull corporation declared support for Parliament
and denied Charles I
entry into the town. Charles I responded to these events by besieging the town
. This siege helped precipitate open conflict between the forces of Parliament and those of the Royalists
.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and leading up to the first World War, the Port of Hull
played a major role in the transmigration of Northern European settlers to the New World, with thousands of emigrants sailing to the city and stopping for administrative purposes before travelling on to Liverpool and then North America.
Parallel to this growth in passenger shipping was the emergence of the Wilson Line of Hull. Founded in the city in 1825 by Thomas Wilson
, by the early 20th century the company had grown – largely through its monopolisation of North Sea passenger routes and later mergers and acquisitions – to be the largest privately-owned shipping company in the world, with over 100 ships sailing to different parts of the globe. The Wilson Line was sold to the Ellerman Line – which itself was owned by Hull-born magnate (and the richest man in Britain at the time) Sir John Ellerman
.
Whaling
played a major role in the town's fortunes until the mid-19th century. Hull's prosperity peaked in the decades just before the First World War; it was during this time, in 1897, that city status
was granted. After the decline of the whaling industry, emphasis shifted to deep-sea trawling
until the Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1975–1976. The conditions set at the end of this dispute initiated Hull's economic decline.
Of a population of approximately 320,000 at the beginning of World War II, some 192,000 were made homeless as a result of bomb destruction or damage. More than 1,200 people died in air raids on the city and some 3,000 others were injured.
The worst of the bombing occurred in 1941. Little was known about this destruction by the rest of the country at the time, since most of the radio and newspaper reports did not reveal Hull by name but referred to it as "a North-East town" or "a northern coastal town".
Most of the city centre was rebuilt in the years following the war, but as recently as 2006 researchers found documents in the local archives that suggested an unexploded wartime bomb might be buried beneath a major new redevelopment, The Boom, in Hull.
Following the Local Government Act 1888
, Hull became a county borough
, a local government district independent of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This district was dissolved under the Local Government Act 1972
, on 1 April 1974 when it became a non-metropolitan district
of the newly created shire county
of Humberside. Humberside (and its county council
) was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Hull was made a unitary authority area.
The single-tier local authority of the city is now Hull City Council
(officially Kingston upon Hull City Council), headquartered in the Guildhall
in the city centre.
The council was designated as the UK's worst performing authority in both 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 was rated as a two star 'improving adequate' council and in 2007 it retained its two stars with an 'improving well' status. In the 2008 corporate performance assessment the city retained its "improving well" status but was upgraded to a three star rating.
The Liberal Democrats
won overall control of the City Council in the 2007 local elections
, ending several years in which no single party had a majority. They retained control in the 2008 local elections
by an increased majority and in the 2010 local elections. Following the UK's local elections of 2011
, the Labour Party
gained control of the council.
The city returned three Members of Parliament to the House of Commons and at the last general election, in 2010, elected three Labour MPs: Alan Johnson who was the former Home Secretary
, Diana Johnson and Karl Turner
.
William Wilberforce is the most celebrated of Hull's former MPs. He was a native of the city and the member for Hull
from 1780 to 1784 when he was elected as an Independent member for Yorkshire
.
It lies within the Yorkshire and the Humber
constituency of the European Parliament
, which in the June 2009 European Election
elected two Conservative
, one Labour, one UKIP
, one Liberal Democrat and one British National Party
MEP
s, although one of the elected Conservative MEPs transferred to the Liberal Democrats in March 2010.
Hull is the only city and forms the major urban area in the official government-defined Hull and Humber Ports City Region
.
At 53°44′30"N 0°20′0"W, 154 miles (248 km) north of London, Kingston upon Hull is near the east coast of the United Kingdom, on the northern bank of the Humber estuary. The city centre is west of the River Hull and close to the Humber. The city is built upon alluvial
and glacial deposits which overlie chalk rocks but the underlying chalk has no influence on the topography. The land within the city is generally very flat and is only 2 to 4 metres (6.5 to 13 ft) above sea level. Because of the relative flatness of the site there are few physical constraints upon building and many open areas are the subject of pressures to build.
The parishes of Drypool
, Marfleet
, Sculcoates
, and most of Sutton parish, were absorbed within the borough of Hull in the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of their area has been built over, and socially and economically they have long been inseparable from the city. Sutton alone retained a recognisable village centre in the late 20th century, but on the south and east the advancing suburbs had already reached it. The four villages were, nevertheless, distinct communities, of a largely rural character, until their absorption in the borough—Drypool and Sculcoates in 1837, Marfleet in 1882, and Sutton in 1929. The current boundaries of the city are tightly drawn and exclude many of the metropolitan area
's nearby villages, of which Cottingham
is the largest.
The city is surrounded by the rural East Riding of Yorkshire.
Some areas of Hull lie on reclaimed land at or below sea level. The Hull Tidal Surge Barrier is at the point where the River Hull joins the Humber estuary and is lowered at times when unusually high tides are expected. It is used between 8 and 12 times per year and protects the homes of approximately 10,000 people from flooding.
Due to its low level, Hull is expected to be at increasing levels of risk from flooding due to global warming.
Many areas of Hull were flooded during the June 2007 United Kingdom floods, with 8600 homes and 1300 businesses affected.
Historically Hull has been affected by tidal and storm flooding from the Humber;
the last serious floods were in the 1950s, in 1953, 1954 and the winter of 1959.
Unlike many other English cities, Hull has no cathedral. It is in the Diocese of York
and has a Suffragan bishop
. However, Hull's Holy Trinity Church
is the largest parish church
in England when floor area is the measurement for comparison. The church dates to about 1300 and contains what is widely acknowledged to be some of the finest mediæval brick-work in the country, particularly in the transept
s.
Hull forms part of the Southern Vicariate of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough
and included among Hull's Catholic churches is St Charles Borromeo
, the oldest post-reformation Catholic Church in the city.
There are several seamen's missions and churches in Hull. The Mission to Seafarers
has a centre at West King George Dock and the St Nikolaj Danish Seamen's Church is located in Osborne Street.
, Hull has a temperate maritime climate which is dominated by the passage of mid-latitude depressions. The weather is very changeable from day to day and the warming influence of the Gulf Stream
makes the region mild for its latitude. Locally, the area is sunnier than most areas this far north in the British Isles, and also considerably drier, due to the rain shadowing effect of the Pennines. It is also one of the most northerly areas where the July maximum temperature exceeds 21 °C (70 °F), although this appears to be very localised around the city itself.
The absolute maximum temperature recorded is 34.4 °C (93.9 °F), set in August 1990. Typically, the warmest day should reach 28.6 °C (83.5 °F), though slightly over 10 days should achieve a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or more in an 'average' year. All averages refer to the 1971–2000 period.
The absolute minimum temperature is −11.1 °C (12.0 °F), recorded during January 1982. An average of 29.8 nights should report an air frost.
Cleethorpes
is the nearest weather station for which sunshine records are available, the overall weather conditions are similar, though with slightly cooler summer daytime temperatures due to its more exposed coastal location. It is also somewhat drier than the city itself throughout the year; Rain falls on about 109 days giving an average total annual rainfall of 565 millimetres (22 in). January is usually the coldest month and November the wettest. The warmest month is August and the driest is February.
measuring 5.3 on the Richter Scale
which lasted for nearly 10 seconds. This was an unusually large earthquake for this part of the world.
and has been officially estimated as 256,200 in July 2006.
In 2001 approximately 53,000 people were aged under 16, 174,000 were aged 16–74, and 17,000 aged 75 and over. Of the total population 97.7% were white and the largest minority ethnic group was of 749 people who considered themselves to be ethnically Chinese. There were 3% of people living in Hull who were born outside the United Kingdom. In 2006 the largest minority ethnic grouping was Iraqi Kurds who were estimated at 3,000. Most of these people were placed in the city by the Home Office while their applications for asylum were being processed. In 2001, the city was 71.7% Christian. A further 18% of the population indicated they were of no religion while 8.4% did not specify any religious affiliation. In 2001, the city had the lowest church attendance in the United Kingdom.
Also in 2001, the city had a high proportion, at 6.2%, of people of working age who were unemployed, ranking 354th out of 376 local and unitary authorities within England and Wales
. The distance travelled to work was less than 3 miles (4.8 km) for 64,578 out of 95,957 employed people. A further 18,031 travelled between 5 and 10 kilometres (3.1 and 6.2 mi) to their place of employment. The number of people using public transport to get to work was 12,915 while the number travelling by car was 53,443.
and some warehouses survive in the Old Town, where trade was centred on the River Hull
, later shifting to the Humber
docks. Another major industry was oilseed crushing. Although the fishing industry declined in the 1970s, the city remains a busy port, handling 13 million tonnes of cargo per year. Freight handling at the port is projected to rise following Network Rail
oversight of a £14.5 million investment in the rail link
, which was completed in mid-2008. This was projected to increase its capacity from 10 trains per day to 22.
The port operations run by Associated British Ports
and other companies in the port employ 5,000 people. A further 18,000 are employed as a direct result of the port's activities.
The port area of the city has diversified to compensate for the decline in fishing by the introduction of Roll-on Roll-off ferry services to the continent of Europe. These ferries now handle over a million passengers each year.
Hull has exploited the leisure industry by creating a marina from the old Humber Street Dock in the centre of the city. It opened in 1983 and has 270 berths for yachts and small sailing craft.
Industry in the city is focused on the chemical and health care sectors. Several well-known British companies, including BP
, Smith & Nephew
, Seven Seas, and Reckitt Benckiser
, have facilities in Hull.
The health care sector is further enhanced by the research facilities provided by the University of Hull
through the Institute of Woundcare and the Hull York Medical School
partnerships. In recent years, with the decline of fishing and heavy industry, the retail sector, tourism, the arts and further and higher education sectors have played an increasingly prominent role in the process of economic regeneration and raising the profile of the city. In 2009 it was estimated that businesses in Hull deliver an annual turnover of almost £8 billion, and over 5 million annual visitors contribute almost £210 million to Hull's economy.
In January 2011 Siemens
and Associated British Ports signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the construction of wind energy machine manufacturing plant at Alexander Dock. The plan would require some modification of the dock to allow the ships, used for transporting the wind turbines, to dock and be loaded.
, House of Fraser
and British Home Stores (BHS). The city has three main shopping centres, St. Stephen's
, Princes Quay
and the Prospect Centre. There are also a number of "retail parks", and suburban shopping centres including the North Point Shopping Centre at Bransholme
, St Andrews Quay on the Humber bank, as well as near Great Gutter lane (Willerby), Mount Pleasent (Holderness Road), Priory Park (near Hessle) and Kingswood retail park (Kingswood)
Whitefriargate is one of the shopping streets, along with King Edward Street and Carr lane.
The electrical retailer Comet Group was founded in the city as Comet Battery Stores Limited in 1933, the company's first superstore was opened in Hull in 1968.
The city's branch of Woolworth's
on King Edward closed in 2008,
and that of T J Hughes
on site of the former C&A
store on Ferensway in August 2011, following the parents companies bankrupcy. The main out of town shopping streets are Hessle Road, Holderness Road, Chanterlands Avenue, Beverley Road, as well as Princes Avenue
and Newland Avenue. Two covered shopping arcades dating remain in the town centre; the Hepworth and Paragon Arcades.
The Prospect Centre on Prospect Street is a smaller, older shopping centre with a range of chain stores, banks and fashion retailers. It contains branches of Boots, Claire's, a large Wilkinsons, Poundland, W H Smith
, Santander, and Hull's main Post Office. At Bransholme, the North Point Shopping Centre (Bransholme Shopping Centre) contains a similar range of popular chain stores and budget-oriented retailers including Boyes and Heron Foods.
The Princes Quay Shopping Centre (1991) was built on stilts over the closed Prince's Dock, and houses a variety of chain stores and food outlets. It was originally built with four retail floors, known as "decks". The uppermost deck has housed a Vue
cinema since December 2007.
Budget and discount retailers such as Boyes, Primark
, Peacocks
, Poundland
and Wilkinsons have branches in the city. Hull has a good selection of supermarkets including several branches of Tesco
, Sainsbury's, the Co-operative
and budget food stores including Heron Foods
and Iceland.
During the early 2000s large areas of central Hull were marked as sites of regeneration to encourage retailing and commercial development. These areas included the proposed Quay West (cancelled 2010.
) and flagship St. Stephen's projects. The St. Stephen's development on Ferensway is Hull's is a 560000 square feet (52,025.7 m²) scheme, costing over £160 million. It is anchored by a large 24-hour Tesco Extra superstore and provides shop units, food outlets, a hotel, car parking; adjacent is Hull's Paragon Interchange completed in the same time period which includes a new bus station and renovated railway station with retail outlets.
Overlooking the Humber, the new £165 million Humber Quays development, which has now gained World Trade Centre status
, is adding new high-quality office space to Hull's waterfront. Phase 1 of the project includes two office buildings (both complete) and 51 new apartments.
Phase 2 will include a new 200-bedroom 4-star hotel, a restaurant, and more high-quality office space.
During the early 2000s a £100 million residential development was planned for the east bank of the River Hull. This development, called the Boom, would include over 600 luxury riverside apartments, shops, boutiques, bistro cafés, a 120-bed luxury hotel, and health and education facilities. Linking the development to the city centre started in September 2009 with the construction of a swing footbridge across the River Hull which is described as an "iconic" addition to Hull's skyline.
The 50-stall indoor Edwardian Trinity Market, a grade II listed building, and Hepworth's arcade were modernised and renovated in the lated 2000s.
In 2003 the city established a Youth Enterprise Partnership to help support enterprising young people. Teams from Hull formed under this partnership have reached the National Finals of the Young Enterprise competition, and two teams have continued to the European Finals. The city has also established the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank to give financial support to qualifying individuals.
In June 2010 due to governmental budgetary cuts on public spending Hull Forward lost funding, and the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward
was abolished.
A new Siemens wind turbine
plant was planned to be built in Hull’s Alexandra Dock as part of Hull’s bid for a new Enterprise Zone along a three-mile stretch of Hedon Road.
A 12.5-acre site waste-to-energy
centre costing in the region of £150,000,000, could also be built in Hull after plans were revealed for a major renewables scheme by the Barrow-upon-Humber-based engineering group, Spencer has submitted plans to Hull City Council for Energy Works, in a project that would see up to 200,000 tonnes of organic material converted into energy each year. Charlie Spencer, chief executive of C Spencer Ltd, said: "This will be the first project of its kind in the UK." The new ‘Energy Works’, which is predicted to create 60 permanent jobs and 200 others in the construction phase, aims to significantly reduce the need for waste to go to landfill.
The planed project will be built on a between the River Hull and Cleveland Street and convert up to 20,000 tonnes of organic material into energy each year and will produce enough energy to power roughly 25,000 by relying on a process called advanced gasification. The power station could be up and running in 2014, if given planning permission by the end of 2011, since construction is expected to take two years.
Friends of the Earth
said it was too early to comment on the proposals for the new plant, planned for Cleveland Street. A previous plan for an incinerator at Saltend to burn waste was opposed by a variety of local groups in 2010.
They were concerned that some materials entering the mix that could be recycled wanted the government to prioritise recycling and for the UK to boost recycling rates to 70%.
The planning application was submitted to Hull City Council
for consideration in mid-2011.
, the Arctic Corsair
, the Hull and East Riding Museum (which contains the Hasholme Logboat
– Britain's largest surviving prehistoric logboat), and the Streetlife Museum of Transport
. Other museums and visitor attractions include the Ferens Art Gallery
with a good range of art and regular exhibitions, the Maritime Museum in Victoria Square, the Spurn Lightship
, the Yorkshire Water Museum, and the Deep
, the world's only submarium.
The recently refurbished Seven Seas Fish Trail marks Hull's fishing heritage, leading its followers through old and new sections of the city, following a wide variety of sealife engraved in the pavement.
grew up in Hull and studied at the Hull College of Art (now part of Lincoln University) from 1959–64. Remfry has had two solo exhibitions at the Ferens Art Gallery in 1975 and 2005. Hull has a number of historical statues such as the Wilberforce Memorial in Queen's Gardens and the gilded King William III statue on Market Place (known locally as "King Billy").
There is a statue of Hull-born Amy Johnson
in Prospect Street. In recent years a number of modern art sculptures and heritage trails have been installed around Hull. These include a figure looking out to the Humber
called 'Voyage' which has a twin in Iceland. In July 2011, this artwork was reported stolen. There is a shark sculpture outside The Deep
and a fountain and installation called 'Tower of Light' outside Britannia House on the corner of Spring Bank.
In 2010 a public art event in Hull city centre entitled Larkin with Toads displayed 40 individually decorated giant toad models as the centrepiece of the Larkin 25
festival. Most of these sculptures have since been sold off for charity and transported to their new owners. Visitors to Hull's Paragon Interchange are now greeted by the new statue of Philip Larkin
unveiled on 2 December 2010.
The city has three main theatres. Hull New Theatre, which opened in 1939, is the largest venue which features musicals, opera, ballet, drama, children's shows and pantomime.
The Hull Truck Theatre
is a smaller independent theatre, established in 1971,
that regularly features plays, notably those written by John Godber
.
Since April 2009, the Hull Truck Theatre has had a new £14.5 million, 440 seat venue in the St. Stephen's Hull
development replacing the old complex on Spring Street. The playwright Alan Plater
was brought up in Hull and was associated with Hull Truck Theatre. The Northern Theatre Company, established in 1975, is also based in the city and offers youth training in acting.
Hull has produced a number of veteran stage and TV actors. Sir Tom Courtenay
, Ian Carmichael
and Maureen Lipman
were born and raised in Hull. Younger actors Reece Shearsmith
, Debra Stephenson
and Liam Garrigan
were also born in Hull. Garrigan attended Hull's Northern Theatre Company and Wyke College
.
In 1914, there were 29 cinemas in Hull
but most of these have now closed. The first purpose-built cinema was the Prince's Hall in George Street which opened in 1910. It was subsequently renamed the Curzon.
has described it as "the most poetic city in England".
Philip Larkin
set many of his poems in Hull; these include "The Whitsun Weddings", "Toads", and "Here". Scottish-born Douglas Dunn
's Terry Street, a portrait of working-class Hull life, is one the outstanding poetry collections of the 1970s.
Dunn forged close associations with such Hull poets as Peter Didsbury
and Sean O'Brien
; the works of some of these writers appear in the 1982 Bloodaxe anthology A Rumoured City, a work that Dunn edited. Andrew Motion
, past Poet Laureate
, lectured at the University of Hull
between 1976 and 1981, and Roger McGough
studied there. Both poets are speaking at the Humber Mouth Festival in 2010. Contemporary poets associated with Hull are Maggie Hannan, David Wheatley, and Caitriona O'Reilly
.
17th century Metaphysical Poet and parliamentarian Andrew Marvell
was born nearby, grew up and was educated in the city. There is a statue in his honour in the Market Square (Trinity Square), set against the backdrop of his alma mater Hull Grammar School
.
, the largest professional chamber ensemble in the Humber region, and also the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra
, one of the oldest amateur orchestras in the country. The Hull Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, established in 1952,
the Hull Choral Union, the Hull Bach Choir – which specialises in the performance of 17th and 18th century choral music, the Hull Male Voice Choir, the Arterian Singers and two Gilbert & Sullivan Societies: the Dagger Lane Operatic Society and the Hull Savoyards are also based in Hull. There are two brass bands, the East Yorkshire Motor Services Band, who are the current North of England Area Brass Band
Champions, and East Riding of Yorkshire Band.
Hull City Hall annually plays host to major British and European symphony Orchestras with its 'International Masters' orchestral concert season. During the 2009–10 season visiting orchestra's included the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra
and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra
. Internationally renowned touring pop, rock, and comedy acts also regularly play the City Hall.
of the Hull band Rats worked closely with David Bowie
and was heavily involved in production of the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
. Ronson later went on to record with Lou Reed
, Bob Dylan
, Morrissey
and The Wildhearts
. There is a Mick Ronson Memorial Stage in Queen's Gardens
in Hull.
In the 1980s, Hull groups such as The Red Guitars
, The Housemartins
and Everything But the Girl
found mainstream success. Paul Heaton
, former member of The Housemartins
went on to front The Beautiful South
. Another former member of The Housemartins, Norman Cook, now performs as Fatboy Slim
. In 1983, Hull-born Paul Anthony Cook, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman formed the group Sade
. In 1984, the singer Helen Adu
signed to CBS and the group released the album Diamond Life. The album went Triple Platinum in the UK. Vocalist and actor Roland Gift
, who formed the Fine Young Cannibals
, grew up in Hull.
The pioneering industrial
band Throbbing Gristle
formed in Hull; Genesis P-Orridge
(Neil Megson) attended Hull University between 1968 and 1969, where he met Cosey Fanni Tutti
(Christine Newby), who was born in the city, and first became part of the Hull performance art group COUM Transmissions
in 1970.
The record label Pork Recordings
started in Hull in the mid-1990s and has released music by Fila Brazillia
,
Mr Beasley and The Brilliance among others. The Sesh night has released four DIY compilations featuring the cream of Hull's live music scene and there are currently a few labels emerging in the city, including Purple Worm Records and Empire.
The Adelphi is a popular local venue for alternative live music in the city, and has achieved notability outside Hull, having hosted such bands as The Stone Roses
, Radiohead
, Green Day
, and Oasis
in its history, while the Springhead caters to a variety of bands and has been recognised nationally as a Live Music Pub of the Year.
The Humber Mouth literature festival is an annual event and the 2010 season featured writers such as Roy Hattersley
, Andrew Motion and Roger McGough
. This was followed, on 17 July 2010, by the Sea Fever Festival, an International Sea Shanty
Festival, July being the new date for the sea shanty.
The annual Hull Jazz Festival takes place around the Marina
area for a week at the beginning of August.
As of 2008 Hull has also held Freedom Festival
; an annual free arts and live music
event that celebrates freedom in all its forms.
Early October sees the arrival of Hull Fair
which is one of Europe's largest travelling funfair
s and takes place on land adjacent to the KC Stadium
.
The Hull Global Food Festival held its third annual event in the city's Queen Victoria Square for three days – 4–6 September 2009. According to officials, the event in 2007 attracted 125,000 visitors and brought some £5 million in revenue to the area.
In 2007 the Hull Metalfest began in the Welly Club, it featured major label bands from the United States, Canada and Italy, as well as the UK.
The first Hull Comedy Festival
, which included performers such as Stewart Lee
and Russell Howard
was held in 2007.
In 2010, Hull marked the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet Philip Larkin
with the Larkin 25
Festival. This included the popular Larkin with Toads public art event. The 40 Larkin toads were displayed around Hull and later sold off in a charity auction. A charity appeal raised funds to cast a life-size bronze statue of Philip Larkin, to a design by Martin Jennings, at Hull Paragon Interchange. The statue was unveiled at a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor of Hull on 2 December 2010, the 25th anniversary of Larkin's death. It bears an inscription drawn from the first line of Larkin's poem, 'The Whitsun Weddings
'.
, Pearson Park
, Pickering Park
and West Park. West Park is home to Hull's KC Stadium
. Pearson Park contains a lake and a 'Victorian Conservatory' housing birds and reptiles. East Park has a large boating lake and a collection of birds and animals. They are registered Grade II listed sites by English Heritage
.
The city centre has the large Queen's Gardens
parkland at its heart. This was originally built as formal ornamental gardens used to fill in the former Queen's Dock. It is now a more flexible grassed and landscaped area used for concerts and festivals, but retains a large ornamental flower circus and fountain at its western end.
The streets of Hull's suburban areas also lined with large numbers of trees, particularly the Avenues area around Princes Avenue and Boulevard to the west. Many of the old trees in the Avenues district have been felled in recent years with the stumps carved into a variety of 'living sculptures'. Other green areas include the University area and parts of Beverley Road
to the north.
West Hull has a district known as 'Botanic'. This recalls the short-lived Botanic Garden that once existed on the site now occupied by Hymers College
. Elephants once lived nearby in the former Zoological Gardens on Spring Bank Avenue and were paraded in the local streets. The land has since been redeveloped. There was also a former Botanic Garden between Hessle Road and the Anlaby Road commemorated by Linnaeus Street.
Hull's only local daily newspaper is the longstanding Hull Daily Mail
, whose circulation area covers much of East Yorkshire. A free paper, The Hull Advertiser, is issued weekly by the same publisher. Local listings and what's-on guides include Tenfoot City Magazine and Sandman Magazine
. The BBC has its Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
regional headquarters at Queen's Gardens
, from which the regional news programme Look North
is broadcast. Radio services come from BBC Radio Humberside
, Viking FM, KCFM, Magic 1161
, 106.9FM WHCR
, Hull University Union's Jam 1575, and Kingstown Radio
, the hospital-based radio station, which all broadcast to the city.
The Hull area has available a wide range of both spectator and participatory sporting clubs and organisations. These are as various as professional football, rugby league
, golf, darts
, athletics and pigeon racing
.
The city's professional football club, Hull City A.F.C.
(The Tigers), play in the Championship
, the second tier of the English football league system
after relegation from the Premier League in season 2009–10. The team play at the KC Stadium
.
Hull is also a rugby league
hub, having two clubs who play in the engage Super League
competition. Hull F.C., alongside the city's football club Hull City, play at the KC Stadium while Hull Kingston Rovers
play at Craven Park in East Hull. There are also several lower league teams in the city, such as East Hull
, West Hull
, Hull Dockers
and Hull Isberg, who all play in the National Conference League
. Rugby union
is catered for by Hull Ionians
who play at Brantingham
Park. and Hull RUFC
who are based in the city.
The city has two athletics clubs based at the Costello Stadium in the west of the city – Kingston upon Hull Athletics Club and Hull Achilies Athletics Club.
Cycling wise the city is home to Hull Cycle Speedway Club situated at the Hessle raceway near the Humber bridge. The side race in the sports Northern league and won both the league titles in 2008. Other cycling clubs also operate throughout the city including Hull Thursday, the areas road racing group.
The city also has Hull Arena,
a large ice rink
and concert venue, which is home to the Hull Stingrays
ice hockey
team who play in the Elite Ice Hockey League
. It is also home to the Kingston Kestrels sledge hockey
team. In August 2010, Hull Daily Mail reported that Hull Stingrays was facing closure, following a financial crisis. The club was subsequently saved from closure following a takeover by Coventry Blaze
.
The Hull Hornets
American Football
Club which acquired full member status of the British American Football League
on 5 November 2006 and played in the BAFL Division 2 Central league for 2007. Greyhound racing returned to the city on 25 October 2007 when The Boulevard
stadium re-opened as a venue for the sport.
In mid-2006 Hull was home to the professional wrestling company One Pro Wrestling
, which held the Devils Due event on 27 July in the Gemtec Arena
. From 16 May 2008, Hull gained its own homegrown wrestling company based at the Eastmount Recreation Centre-—New Generation Wrestling—-that have featured the likes of El Ligero, Kris Travis, Martin Kirby and Alex Shane
.
The city played host to the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, a tough 35000 miles (56,326.9 km) race around the globe, for the 2009–10 race which started on 13 September 2009 and finished on 17 July 2010. The locally named yacht, Hull and Humber, captained by Danny Watson, achieved second place in the 2007–2008 race.
The main road into and out of Hull is the M62 motorway
/A63 road
, one of the main east–west routes in northern England
. It provides a link to the cities of Leeds
, Manchester
and Liverpool
, as well as the rest of the country via the UK motorway network. The motorway itself ends some distance from the city; the rest of the route is along the A63 dual carriageway. This east–west route forms a small part of the European road route E20
.
Hull is close to the Humber Bridge
, which provides road links to destinations south of the Humber
. It was built between 1972 and 1981, and at the time was the longest single-span suspension bridge
in the world. It is now fifth on the list.
Before the bridge was built, those wishing to cross the Humber had to either take a ferry or travel inland as far as Goole
.
Public transport within the city is provided by two main bus operators: Stagecoach in Hull
and East Yorkshire Motor Services
(EYMS). A smaller operator, Alpha Bus and Coach, provides one of the two Park and Ride
services in the city and CT Plus the other, having taken over the contract in November 2009 from EYMS.
Generally, routes within the city are operated by Stagecoach and those which leave the city are operated by EYMS.
Hull Paragon Interchange, opened on 16 September 2007,
is the city's transport hub, combining the main bus and rail termini in an integrated complex. It is expected to have 24,000 people passing through the complex each day.
From the railway terminus, services run to certain other parts of the UK. These include through expresses to London, up to seven per day provided by First Hull Trains and one a day (the Hull Executive) by East Coast
. Other long-distance rail services from Hull are provided by First Transpennine Express
serving Leeds
and Manchester
. The nearest access to fast East Coast Main Line
services northwards to Teesside
, Tyneside
and Scotland is via either or , in either case requiring a connecting journey by local train from Hull. Hull also has no through trains to the West Midlands and beyond. Northern Rail
operates regular local stopping trains to , and , and the coastal towns of Bridlington
and Scarborough, along with services to Selby
, York, Doncaster and Sheffield
.
P&O Ferries
provide daily overnight ferry services from King George Dock in Hull to Zeebrugge
and Rotterdam
.
Services to Rotterdam are worked by ferries Pride of Rotterdam and Pride of Hull.
The nearest airport is Humberside Airport
, 20 miles (32 km) away in Lincolnshire
, which provides a few charter flights but also has high-frequency flights to Amsterdam with KLM and Aberdeen with Eastern Airways
each day. Robin Hood Airport
in South Yorkshire
is 48 miles (77 km) from Hull city centre and provides a wider choice of charter flights as well as a number of low-cost flights to certain European destinations.
Road transport in Hull suffers from delays caused both by the many bridges over the navigable River Hull
, which bisects the city and which can cause disruption at busy times, and from the remaining three railway level crossing
s in the city. The level-crossing problem was greatly relieved during the 1960s by the closure of the Hornsea
and Withernsea
branch lines, by the transfer of all goods traffic to the high-level line
that circles the city, and by the construction of two major road bridges on Hessle
Road (1962) and Anlaby
Road (1964).
Hull is the only city in the UK with its own independent telephone network company, KC, formerly Kingston Communications, a subsidiary of KCOM Group. Its distinctive cream telephone boxes
can be seen across the city. KC produces its own 'White Pages' telephone directory for Hull and the wider KC area. Colour Pages is KC's business directory, the counterpart to Yellow Pages
. The company was formed in 1902 as a municipal department by the City Council and is an early example of municipal enterprise. It remains the only locally operated telephone company in the UK, although it is now privatised. KCOM's Internet brands are Karoo Broadband (ISP serving Hull) and Eclipse (national ISP)
Initially Hull City Council retained a 44.9 per cent interest in the company and used the proceeds from the sale of shares to fund the city's sports venue, the KC Stadium
, among other things. On 24 May 2007 it sold its remaining stake in the company for over £107 million.
KC (Kingston Communications) was one of the first telecoms operators in Europe to offer ADSL
to business users, and the first in the world to run an interactive television service using ADSL, known as Kingston Interactive TV (KiT), which has since been discontinued due to financial problems. In the last decade, the KCOM Group has expanded beyond Hull and diversified its service portfolio to become a nationwide provider of telephone, television, and Internet access services, having close to 180,000 customers projected for 2007. After its ambitious programme of expansion, KCOM has struggled in recent years and now has partnerships with other telecommunications firms such as BT who are contracted to manage its national infrastructure. Telephone House, on Carr Lane, the firm's 1960s-built HQ, in stark modernist style, is a local landmark.
. In October 2006 the force was named (jointly with Northamptonshire Police
) as the worst-performing police force in the United Kingdom, based on data released from the Home Office
. However, after a year of "major improvements", the Home Office list released in October 2007 shows the force rising several places (although still among the bottom six of 43 forces rated). Humberside Police received ratings of "good" or "fair" in most categories.
HM Prison Hull
is located in the city and is operated by HM Prison Service. It caters for up to 1,000 Category B/C
adult male prisoners.
Statutory emergency fire and rescue service
is provided by the Humberside Fire and Rescue Service
, which has its headquarters near Hessle and five fire stations in Hull. This service was formed in 1974 following local government reorganisation from the amalgamation of the East Riding of Yorkshire County Fire Service, Grimsby Borough Fire and Rescue Service, Kingston Upon Hull City Fire Brigade and part of the Lincoln (Lindsey) Fire Brigade and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Fire and Rescue Service.
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
provides healthcare from three sites, Hull Royal Infirmary
, Castle Hill Hospital
and Princess Royal Hospital and there are several private hospitals including ones run by BUPA
and Nuffield Hospitals. The Yorkshire Ambulance Service
provides emergency patient transport. NHS primary health care services are provided by Hull NHS Primary Care Trust
at several smaller clinics and general practitioner
surgeries. NHS Mental health services in Hull are provided by Humber NHS Foundation Trust. It runs a Memory Clinic in Coltman Street, west Hull designed to help older people with early onset dementia
.
Waste management
is co-ordinated by the local authority. The Waste Recycling Group
is a company which works in partnership with the Hull City and East Riding of Yorkshire councils to deal with the waste produced by residents. The company plans to build an energy from waste plant at Salt End
to deal with 240,000 tonnes of rubbish and put waste to a productive use by providing power for the equivalent of 20,000 houses. Hull's Distribution Network Operator
for electricity is CE Electric UK
(YEDL
); there are no power station
s in the city. Yorkshire water manages Hull's drinking
and waste water. Drinking water is provided by boreholes and aquifers in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and it is abstracted from the River Hull at Tophill Low, near Hutton Cranswick. Should either supply experience difficulty meeting demand, water abstracted from the River Derwent
at both Elvington
and Loftsome Bridge can be moved to Hull via the Yorkshire water grid. There are many reservoirs in the area for storage of potable and non-potable water. Waste water and sewage has to be transported in a wholly pumped system because of the flat nature of the terrain to a sewage
treatment works at Salt End
. The treatment works is partly powered by both a wind turbine
and a biogas CHP engine.
, which was founded in 1927 and received its Royal Charter in 1954. It now has a total student population of around 20,000 across its main campuses in Hull and Scarborough. The main University campus is in North Hull, on Cottingham Road. Notable alumni include former Deputy Prime Minister Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull (John Prescott
), The Poet Philip Larkin
, social scientist Lord Anthony Giddens
, Woman's Hour
presenter and writer Jenni Murray
, and the dramatist Anthony Minghella
. Hull University is a partner in the new University Centre of the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education (GIFE) being built in Grimsby, North Lincolnshire.
(HYMS) is a joint venture between the University of Hull
and the University of York
. It first admitted students in 2003 as a part of the British government's attempts to train more doctors.
grew out of the University of Humberside, a former polytechnic
based in Hull. In the 1990s the focus of the institution moved to nearby Lincoln
and the administrative headquarters and management moved in 2001. The University of Lincoln has retained a campus in George Street in Hull city centre whilst Hull University purchased the adjacent University of Lincoln campus site on Cottingham Road. Following government cuts to Higher Education funding, the George Street campus is due to close in 2013 with courses transferred to Lincoln.
, founded in 1861, is regarded nationally and internationally for its excellence as a specialist creative centre for higher education.
The Northern Academy of Performing Arts and Northern Theatre School both provide education in musical theatre, performance and dance.
, is a Roman Catholic secondary school.
Schools which are independent of the City Council include Hymers College
and Hull Collegiate School
. The latter, which is run by the United Church Schools Trust, was formed by the merging of Hull Grammar School and Hull High School. There is a further education
college, Hull College
, and two large sixth form college
s, Wyke College
and Wilberforce College
. East Riding College
operates a small adult education campus in the city, and Hull Trinity House School has been offering pre-sea training to prospective mariners since 1787.
There are only two single-sex schools in Hull: Trinity House, which teaches only boys, and Newland School For Girls
.
In the 2007 the city moved off the bottom of these tables for pupils who achieve five A* to C grades, including English and Maths, at General Certificate of Secondary Education
by just one place when it came 149th out of 150 local education authorities. However, the improvement rate of 4.1 per cent, from 25.9 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in summer 2007, was among the best in the country.
They returned to the bottom of the table in 2008 when 29.3 per cent achieved five A* to C grades which is well below the national average of 47.2 per cent.
is quite distinctive and noticeably different from the rest of the East Riding; however it is still categorised among Yorkshire accent
s. The most notable feature of the accent is the strong I-mutation
in words like goat, which is [ˈɡəʊt] in standard English
and [ˈɡoːt] across most of Yorkshire, becomes [ˈɡɵːt] ("gert") in and around parts of Hull, although there is variation across areas and generations.
In common with much of England (outside of the far north), another feature is dropping the H from the start of words, for example Hull is more often pronounced 'Ull in the city. The vowel in "Hull" is pronounced the same way as in northern English, however, and not as the very short /ʊ/ that exists in Lincolnshire. Though the rhythm of the accent is more like that of northern Lincolnshire than that of the rural East Riding, which is perhaps due to migration from Lincolnshire to the city during its industrial growth. One feature that it does share with the surrounding rural area is that an /aɪ/ sound in the middle of a word often becomes an /ɑː/: for example, "five" may sound like "fahve", "time" like "tahme", etc. "Guide" and "guard" for example are therefore homophones.
The vowel sound in words such as burnt, nurse, first is pronounced with an /ɛ/ sound, as is also heard in Middlesbrough
and in areas of Liverpool
yet this sound is very uncommon in most of Yorkshire. The word pairs spur/spare and fur/fair illustrate this.
The generational and/or geographic variation can be heard in word pairs like pork/poke or cork/coke, or hall/hole, which some people pronounce identically (using the second of the two variations) while others make a distinction; anyone called "Paul" (for example) soon becomes aware of this (pall/pole).
People from Hull are called "Hullensians" and the city has been the birthplace and home to many notable people. Among the most notable persons of historic significance with a connection to Hull are William Wilberforce
who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery
and Amy Johnson
, aviator who was the first person to fly solo from England to Australia.
Notable entertainers from the city include actor John Alderton
and actress Maureen Lipman
.
Playwrights Richard Bean
, John Godber
and Alan Plater have close connections with Hull.
Musicians include Paul Heaton
of the Housemartins and The Beautiful South
and guitarist Mick Ronson
who worked with David Bowie. The logician John Venn
hailed from Hull. The poet Philip Larkin
lived in Hull for 30 years and wrote much of his mature work in the city.
Notable sportspeople include Clive Sullivan
, rugby league player, who played for both of Hull's professional rugby league teams and was the first black Briton to captain any national representative team. The main A63 road into the city from the Humber Bridge
is named after him (Clive Sullivan Way). Another is Dean Windass
, who had two spells with Hull City and scored the goal which helped the club to promotion to the top flight of English football for the first time in the club's history. On accepting a peerage
, Welsh-born Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull (former MP and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
) took his title from his adopted home city of Hull.
Hull has formal twinning
arrangements with several places:
Hull, Massachusetts
, in the USA is named after this city, as is Hull, Quebec
, which is part of the Canadian national capital region.
City status in the United Kingdom
City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British monarch to a select group of communities. The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions...
and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire
East Riding of Yorkshire
The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Yorkshire, is a local government district with unitary authority status, and a ceremonial county of England. For ceremonial purposes the county also includes the city of Kingston upon Hull, which is a separate unitary authority...
, England. It stands on the River Hull
River Hull
The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the north of England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of York charged tolls for its use, it became a free...
at its junction with the Humber estuary
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...
, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
. Hull has a resident population of . The Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) population stands at 573,300.
Renamed Kings town upon Hull by King Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
in 1299, the town and city of Hull has served as market town
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
, military supply port, trading hub, fishing and whaling centre, and industrial metropolis.
Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...
. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
, played a key role in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
The city is unique in the UK in having had a municipally-owned telephone system from 1902, sporting cream, not red, telephone boxes
Red telephone box
The red telephone box, a public telephone kiosk designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar, and despite a reduction in their numbers in recent years, red boxes can still be seen in many places and in current or former...
.
After suffering heavy damage during the Second World War, Hull weathered a period of post-industrial decline
Post-industrial society
If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.-Characteristics:...
, during which the city gained unfavourable results on measures of social deprivation, education and policing. In recent years the city has embarked on an extensive programme of economic regeneration, reconstruction and urban renewal. The economic crisis since 2008 has caused some setbacks to these developments.
Hull has been the base for several notable poets, including former University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
Librarian Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
, many of whose poems were set in the city. Established tourist attractions include the historic Old Town and Museum Quarter, the Marina and The Deep
The Deep (aquarium)
-External links:* in association with the University of Hull*...
, a city landmark. The redevelopment of one of Hull's main thoroughfares, Ferensway, included the opening of St. Stephen's Hull
St. Stephen's Hull
St. Stephen's shopping centre, Hull opened on 20 September 2007 and today it attracts more than 10 million visitors a year. The shopping centre is a brownfield site development in the city centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. It cost £200 million to build and was a key development in the...
and the new Hull Truck Theatre
Hull Truck Theatre
The Hull Truck Theatre is a theatre in Kingston upon Hull, England which presents high quality drama productions.It also tours its productions on a regular basis....
. Spectator sporting activities include professional football and two rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
clubs. The KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
houses the football club and one rugby club.
The local accent differs markedly in its vowels from that of the rest of Yorkshire, and the rhythm of speech bears a similarity to that of Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, to which it was briefly linked in the defunct county of Humberside
Humberside
Humberside was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, created from portions of the East and West ridings of Yorkshire and parts of Lindsey, Lincolnshire...
.
History
Kingston upon Hull stands on the north bank of the Humber estuary at the mouth of its tributary, the River HullRiver Hull
The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the north of England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of York charged tolls for its use, it became a free...
. The valley of the River Hull has been inhabited since the early Neolithic period
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
but there is little evidence of a substantial settlement in the area of the present city. The general area was attractive to early developers because it gave access to a prosperous hinterland
Hinterland
The hinterland is the land or district behind a coast or the shoreline of a river. Specifically, by the doctrine of the hinterland, the word is applied to the inland region lying behind a port, claimed by the state that owns the coast. The area from which products are delivered to a port for...
and navigable rivers, but the actual site was not good, as it was remote and low-lying with no fresh water.
It was originally an outlying part of the hamlet of Myton, named Wyke. The name is thought to originate either from a Scandinavian word Vik meaning creek, or from the Saxon Wic meaning dwelling place or refuge.
The River Hull was a good haven for shipping, whose main trade was in the export of wool from the abbey. In 1293 the town was acquired from the abbey by King Edward I, who on 1 April 1299 granted it a royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
that renamed the settlement King's town upon Hull, or Kingston upon Hull. The charter is preserved in the archives of the city's Guildhall
Guildhall, Kingston upon Hull
The Guildhall is a building on Alfred Gelder Street in the City of Kingston upon Hull. The building is currently the headquarters of Hull City Council but is also used as a venue for conferences, civic receptions and formal dinners...
.
In 1440, a further charter incorporated
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
the town and instituted local government consisting of a mayor, a sheriff, and twelve aldermen
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
.
In his Guide to Hull (1817), J.C. Craggs provides a colourful background to Edward's acquisition and naming of the town. He writes that the King and a hunting party started a hare which "led them along the delightful banks of the River Hull to the hamlet of Wyke … [Edward], charmed with the scene before him, viewed with delight the advantageous situation of this hitherto neglected and obscure corner. He foresaw it might become subservient both to render the kingdom more secure against foreign invasion, and at the same time greatly to enforce its commerce". Pursuant to these thoughts, Craggs continues, Edward purchased the land from the Abbot of Meaux, had a manor hall built for himself, issued proclamations encouraging development within the town, and bestowed upon it the royal appellation, King's Town.
The port served as a base for Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence
First War of Scottish Independence
The First War of Scottish Independence lasted from the invasion by England in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328...
and later developed into the foremost port on the east coast of England. It prospered by exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine. Hull also established a flourishing commerce with the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
ports as part of the Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
.
From its mediaeval beginnings, Hull's main trading links were with Scotland and northern Europe. Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Low Countries were all key trading areas for Hull's merchants. In addition, there was trade with France, Spain and Portugal. As sail power gave way to steam, Hull's trading links extended throughout the world. Docks were opened to serve the frozen meat trade of Australia, New Zealand and South America. Hull was also the centre of a thriving inland and coastal trading network, serving the whole of the United Kingdom.
Sir William de la Pole was the town's first mayor. A prosperous merchant, de la Pole founded a family that became prominent in government. Another successful son of a Hull trading family was bishop John Alcock
John Alcock (bishop)
-Biography:Alcock was born at Beverley in Yorkshire, son of Sir William Alcock, Burgess of Kingston upon Hull and educated at Cambridge. In 1461 he was made dean of Westminster, and his subsequent promotion was rapid in both church and state. In the following year he was made Master of the Rolls,...
, who founded Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
and was a patron of the grammar school in Hull. The increase in trade after the discovery of the Americas and the town's maritime connections are thought to have played a part in the introduction of a virulent strain of syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
through Hull and on into Europe from the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
.
Wilberforce House
Wilberforce House is the birth place of William Wilberforce, the famous abolitionist, and is located in High Street, Kingston upon Hull, England. Like the nearby Blaydes House and Maister House, it was formerly a Merchant's house with access to quayside on the River Hull...
, now a museum documenting the life of William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
.
During the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, Hull became strategically important because of the large arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
located there. Very early in the war, on 11 January 1642, the king named the Earl of Newcastle
Earl of Newcastle
Earl of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is a title that has been created two times. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1623 in favour of Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox. He was made Duke of Richmond at the same time. For information on this creation, see the Duke of Lennox...
governor of Hull while Parliament nominated Sir John Hotham
John Hotham
Sir John Hotham, 1st Baronet, of Scorborough , English parliamentarian, belonged to a Yorkshire family, and fought on the continent of Europe during the early part of the Thirty Years' War....
and asked his son, Captain John Hotham, to secure the town at once. Sir John Hotham and Hull corporation declared support for Parliament
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
and denied Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
entry into the town. Charles I responded to these events by besieging the town
Siege of Hull (1642)
The Siege of Hull in 1642 was the first major action of the English Civil War.As both sides moved towards war, Parliament had access to more military materiel, due to its possession of all major cities including the large arsenal in London...
. This siege helped precipitate open conflict between the forces of Parliament and those of the Royalists
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and leading up to the first World War, the Port of Hull
Port of Hull
The Port of Hull is a trading port located at the confluence of the River Hull and the Humber Estuary in the city of Kingston upon Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Seaborne trade can be traced to at least the 13th century...
played a major role in the transmigration of Northern European settlers to the New World, with thousands of emigrants sailing to the city and stopping for administrative purposes before travelling on to Liverpool and then North America.
Parallel to this growth in passenger shipping was the emergence of the Wilson Line of Hull. Founded in the city in 1825 by Thomas Wilson
Thomas Wilson (Shipping)
Thomas Wilson was a 19th century shipping magnate from Hull in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire.-Life:He was founder of the Wilson Line of Hull in 1822 as a joint venture with his partner John Beckinton and two others...
, by the early 20th century the company had grown – largely through its monopolisation of North Sea passenger routes and later mergers and acquisitions – to be the largest privately-owned shipping company in the world, with over 100 ships sailing to different parts of the globe. The Wilson Line was sold to the Ellerman Line – which itself was owned by Hull-born magnate (and the richest man in Britain at the time) Sir John Ellerman
John Ellerman
Sir John Reeves Ellerman, 1st Baronet, CH was an English shipowner and investor. He was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in modern British history, and the only Briton of his generation whose wealth rivalled the leading plutocrats of America's gilded age...
.
Whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
played a major role in the town's fortunes until the mid-19th century. Hull's prosperity peaked in the decades just before the First World War; it was during this time, in 1897, that city status
City status in the United Kingdom
City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British monarch to a select group of communities. The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions...
was granted. After the decline of the whaling industry, emphasis shifted to deep-sea trawling
Trawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net that is used for trawling is called a trawl....
until the Anglo-Icelandic Cod War of 1975–1976. The conditions set at the end of this dispute initiated Hull's economic decline.
Hull Blitz
The city's port and industrial facilities, coupled with its proximity to mainland Europe and ease of location being on a major estuary, led to extremely widespread damage by bombing raids during World War II; much of the city centre was completely destroyed. Hull had 95% of its houses damaged or destroyed, making it the most severely bombed British city or town, apart from London, during World War II.Of a population of approximately 320,000 at the beginning of World War II, some 192,000 were made homeless as a result of bomb destruction or damage. More than 1,200 people died in air raids on the city and some 3,000 others were injured.
The worst of the bombing occurred in 1941. Little was known about this destruction by the rest of the country at the time, since most of the radio and newspaper reports did not reveal Hull by name but referred to it as "a North-East town" or "a northern coastal town".
Most of the city centre was rebuilt in the years following the war, but as recently as 2006 researchers found documents in the local archives that suggested an unexploded wartime bomb might be buried beneath a major new redevelopment, The Boom, in Hull.
Government
Following the Local Government Act 1888
Local Government Act 1888
The Local Government Act 1888 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales...
, Hull became a county borough
County borough
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...
, a local government district independent of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This district was dissolved under the Local Government Act 1972
Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974....
, on 1 April 1974 when it became a non-metropolitan district
Non-metropolitan district
Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially shire districts, are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties in a so-called "two-tier" arrangement...
of the newly created shire county
Shire county
A non-metropolitan county, or shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.4 million. The term shire county is, however, an unofficial usage. Many of the non-metropolitan counties bear historic names...
of Humberside. Humberside (and its county council
County council
A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
) was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Hull was made a unitary authority area.
The single-tier local authority of the city is now Hull City Council
Hull City Council
Hull City Council is the governing body for the unitary authority and city of Kingston upon Hull. It was created in 1972 as the successor to the Corporation of Hull, which was also known as Hull Corporation....
(officially Kingston upon Hull City Council), headquartered in the Guildhall
Guildhall, Kingston upon Hull
The Guildhall is a building on Alfred Gelder Street in the City of Kingston upon Hull. The building is currently the headquarters of Hull City Council but is also used as a venue for conferences, civic receptions and formal dinners...
in the city centre.
The council was designated as the UK's worst performing authority in both 2004 and 2005, but in 2006 was rated as a two star 'improving adequate' council and in 2007 it retained its two stars with an 'improving well' status. In the 2008 corporate performance assessment the city retained its "improving well" status but was upgraded to a three star rating.
The Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
won overall control of the City Council in the 2007 local elections
Hull Council election, 2007
The 2007 Hull Council election took place on 3 May 2007 to elect members of Hull City Council in England. One third of the council was up for election and the Liberal Democrats gained overall control of the council from no overall control...
, ending several years in which no single party had a majority. They retained control in the 2008 local elections
Hull Council election, 2008
The 2008 Hull Council election took place on 1 May 2008 to elect members of Hull City Council in England. One third of the council was up for election and the Liberal Democrats retained control of the council with an increased majority from a situation of ruling under no overall control.After the...
by an increased majority and in the 2010 local elections. Following the UK's local elections of 2011
United Kingdom local elections, 2011
The 2011 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday 5 May 2011. In England, direct elections were held in all 36 Metropolitan boroughs, 194 Second-tier district authorities, 49 unitary authorities and various mayoral posts, meaning local elections took place in all parts of England with...
, the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
gained control of the council.
The city returned three Members of Parliament to the House of Commons and at the last general election, in 2010, elected three Labour MPs: Alan Johnson who was the former Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Diana Johnson and Karl Turner
Karl Turner (politician)
Karl Turner is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull East since 2010.-Early life:...
.
William Wilberforce is the most celebrated of Hull's former MPs. He was a native of the city and the member for Hull
Kingston upon Hull (UK Parliament constituency)
Kingston upon Hull, often simply referred to as Hull, was a parliamentary constituency in Yorkshire, electing two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, from 1305 until 1885...
from 1780 to 1784 when he was elected as an Independent member for Yorkshire
Yorkshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Yorkshire was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England from 1290, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...
.
It lies within the Yorkshire and the Humber
Yorkshire and the Humber (European Parliament constituency)
Yorkshire and the Humber is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 6 MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.- Boundaries :...
constituency of the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
, which in the June 2009 European Election
European Parliament election, 2009 (United Kingdom)
The European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2009 European Parliament election, the voting for which was held on Thursday 4 June 2009, coinciding with the 2009 local elections in England. Most of the results of the election were announced on Sunday 7 June, after...
elected two Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, one Labour, one UKIP
United Kingdom Independence Party
The United Kingdom Independence Party is a eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Whilst its primary goal is the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the party has expanded beyond its single-issue image to develop a more comprehensive party platform.UKIP...
, one Liberal Democrat and one British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
MEP
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
s, although one of the elected Conservative MEPs transferred to the Liberal Democrats in March 2010.
Hull and Humber Ports City Region
The Hull and Humber Ports City Region is the area whose economic development is supported by the Humber Economic Partnership , a sub-regional economic development partnership. This sub-region covers an area of the Yorkshire and the Humber Region and is centred around the primary built up urban...
.
Geography
Alluvium
Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...
and glacial deposits which overlie chalk rocks but the underlying chalk has no influence on the topography. The land within the city is generally very flat and is only 2 to 4 metres (6.5 to 13 ft) above sea level. Because of the relative flatness of the site there are few physical constraints upon building and many open areas are the subject of pressures to build.
The parishes of Drypool
Drypool
Drypool is an area within the city of Kingston upon Hull, EnglandHistorically Drypool was a village, manor and later parish on the east bank River Hull at the confluence of the Humber Estuary and River Hull, it is now part of the greater urban area of Kingston upon Hull, and gives its name to a...
, Marfleet
Marfleet
Marfleet is a suburb of Kingston upon Hull, near the A1033 road, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was served by Marfleet railway station on the Hull and Holderness Railway until it closed in 1964....
, Sculcoates
Sculcoates
Sculcoates is a suburb of Kingston upon Hull, north of the city centre, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It had a railway station called Sculcoates railway station but it was closed on 9 June 1912.- Amenities :...
, and most of Sutton parish, were absorbed within the borough of Hull in the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of their area has been built over, and socially and economically they have long been inseparable from the city. Sutton alone retained a recognisable village centre in the late 20th century, but on the south and east the advancing suburbs had already reached it. The four villages were, nevertheless, distinct communities, of a largely rural character, until their absorption in the borough—Drypool and Sculcoates in 1837, Marfleet in 1882, and Sutton in 1929. The current boundaries of the city are tightly drawn and exclude many of the metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
's nearby villages, of which Cottingham
Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire
Cottingham is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies just to the north-west of the city of Kingston upon Hull...
is the largest.
The city is surrounded by the rural East Riding of Yorkshire.
Due to its low level, Hull is expected to be at increasing levels of risk from flooding due to global warming.
Many areas of Hull were flooded during the June 2007 United Kingdom floods, with 8600 homes and 1300 businesses affected.
Historically Hull has been affected by tidal and storm flooding from the Humber;
the last serious floods were in the 1950s, in 1953, 1954 and the winter of 1959.
Diocese of York
The Diocese of York is an administrative division of the Church of England, part of the Province of York. It covers the city of York, the eastern part of North Yorkshire, and most of the East Riding of Yorkshire....
and has a Suffragan bishop
Suffragan bishop
A suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...
. However, Hull's Holy Trinity Church
Holy Trinity Church, Hull
Holy Trinity Church is an Anglican parish church in the centre of Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England.-History:It is the largest parish church in England when floor area is the measurement for comparison...
is the largest parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
in England when floor area is the measurement for comparison. The church dates to about 1300 and contains what is widely acknowledged to be some of the finest mediæval brick-work in the country, particularly in the transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
s.
Hull forms part of the Southern Vicariate of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough
Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough is a Latin Rite Roman Catholic diocese based in Middlesbrough, England and is part of the province of Liverpool. It was founded on 20 December 1878, with the splitting of the Diocese of Beverley which had covered all of Yorkshire...
and included among Hull's Catholic churches is St Charles Borromeo
St Charles Borromeo, Hull
St Charles Borromeo is a parish in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough and is the oldest post-reformation Catholic Church in the city of Kingston upon Hull, England.The church is now a grade II* listed building.-History:...
, the oldest post-reformation Catholic Church in the city.
There are several seamen's missions and churches in Hull. The Mission to Seafarers
Mission to Seafarers
The Mission to Seafarers is an international not-for-profit charity serving sailor sailors in over 230 ports around the world. It is supported entirely by donations from the public, whose generosity has funded its work for more than a century and a half...
has a centre at West King George Dock and the St Nikolaj Danish Seamen's Church is located in Osborne Street.
Climate
Located in Northern EnglandNorthern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, Hull has a temperate maritime climate which is dominated by the passage of mid-latitude depressions. The weather is very changeable from day to day and the warming influence of the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...
makes the region mild for its latitude. Locally, the area is sunnier than most areas this far north in the British Isles, and also considerably drier, due to the rain shadowing effect of the Pennines. It is also one of the most northerly areas where the July maximum temperature exceeds 21 °C (70 °F), although this appears to be very localised around the city itself.
The absolute maximum temperature recorded is 34.4 °C (93.9 °F), set in August 1990. Typically, the warmest day should reach 28.6 °C (83.5 °F), though slightly over 10 days should achieve a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or more in an 'average' year. All averages refer to the 1971–2000 period.
The absolute minimum temperature is −11.1 °C (12.0 °F), recorded during January 1982. An average of 29.8 nights should report an air frost.
Cleethorpes
Cleethorpes
Cleethorpes is a town and unparished area in North East Lincolnshire, England, situated on the estuary of the Humber. It has a population of 31,853 and is a seaside resort.- History :...
is the nearest weather station for which sunshine records are available, the overall weather conditions are similar, though with slightly cooler summer daytime temperatures due to its more exposed coastal location. It is also somewhat drier than the city itself throughout the year; Rain falls on about 109 days giving an average total annual rainfall of 565 millimetres (22 in). January is usually the coldest month and November the wettest. The warmest month is August and the driest is February.
Seismic activity
At around 00:56 GMT on 27 February 2008, Hull was 30 miles (48 km) north of the epicentre of an earthquake2008 Lincolnshire earthquake
The 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake struck Lincolnshire, in the United Kingdom, on 27 February 2008 at 00:56:47.8s GMT. According to the British Geological Survey, the quake registered a reading of 5.2 on the Richter scale with the epicentre 2.5 miles north of Market Rasen and 15 miles ...
measuring 5.3 on the Richter Scale
Richter magnitude scale
The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....
which lasted for nearly 10 seconds. This was an unusually large earthquake for this part of the world.
Demography
According to the 2001 UK census, Hull had a population of 243,589 living in 104,288 households. The population density was 34.1 per hectare. Of the total number of homes 47.85% were rented compared with a national figure of 31.38% rented. The population had declined by 7.5% since the 1991 UK census,and has been officially estimated as 256,200 in July 2006.
In 2001 approximately 53,000 people were aged under 16, 174,000 were aged 16–74, and 17,000 aged 75 and over. Of the total population 97.7% were white and the largest minority ethnic group was of 749 people who considered themselves to be ethnically Chinese. There were 3% of people living in Hull who were born outside the United Kingdom. In 2006 the largest minority ethnic grouping was Iraqi Kurds who were estimated at 3,000. Most of these people were placed in the city by the Home Office while their applications for asylum were being processed. In 2001, the city was 71.7% Christian. A further 18% of the population indicated they were of no religion while 8.4% did not specify any religious affiliation. In 2001, the city had the lowest church attendance in the United Kingdom.
Also in 2001, the city had a high proportion, at 6.2%, of people of working age who were unemployed, ranking 354th out of 376 local and unitary authorities within England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
. The distance travelled to work was less than 3 miles (4.8 km) for 64,578 out of 95,957 employed people. A further 18,031 travelled between 5 and 10 kilometres (3.1 and 6.2 mi) to their place of employment. The number of people using public transport to get to work was 12,915 while the number travelling by car was 53,443.
| Population growth Population growth Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement.... in Kingston upon Hull since 1801 |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1801 | 1811 | 1821 | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1901 | 1911 | 1921 | 1931 | 1941 | 1951 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 |
| Population | 21,280 | 28,040 | 33,393 | 40,902 | 57,342 | 57,484 | 93,955 | 130,426 | 166,896 | 199,134 | 236,772 | 281,525 | 295,017 | 309,158 | 302,074 | 295,172 | 289,716 | 284,365 | 266,751 | 266,180 | 243,595 |
| Source: Vision of Britain Through Time | |||||||||||||||||||||
Economy
The economy of Hull was built on trading and seafaring, firstly whaling and later seafishing. Merchant's houses such as Blaydes HouseBlaydes House
Blaydes House is a grade II* listed Georgian house in High Street, Kingston upon Hull, England. It is associated with the Blaydes shipbuilding family...
and some warehouses survive in the Old Town, where trade was centred on the River Hull
River Hull
The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the north of England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of York charged tolls for its use, it became a free...
, later shifting to the Humber
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...
docks. Another major industry was oilseed crushing. Although the fishing industry declined in the 1970s, the city remains a busy port, handling 13 million tonnes of cargo per year. Freight handling at the port is projected to rise following Network Rail
Network Rail
Network Rail is the government-created owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain .; it is not responsible for railway infrastructure in Northern Ireland...
oversight of a £14.5 million investment in the rail link
Hull and Barnsley Railway
The Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company was opened on 20 July 1885. It had a total projected length of 66 miles but never reached Barnsley, stopping a few miles short at Stairfoot. The name was changed to The Hull and Barnsley Railway in 1905...
, which was completed in mid-2008. This was projected to increase its capacity from 10 trains per day to 22.
The port operations run by Associated British Ports
Associated British Ports Holdings
Associated British Ports Holdings Ltd owns and operates 21 ports in the United Kingdom, managing around 25 per cent of the UK's sea-borne trade...
and other companies in the port employ 5,000 people. A further 18,000 are employed as a direct result of the port's activities.
The port area of the city has diversified to compensate for the decline in fishing by the introduction of Roll-on Roll-off ferry services to the continent of Europe. These ferries now handle over a million passengers each year.
Hull has exploited the leisure industry by creating a marina from the old Humber Street Dock in the centre of the city. It opened in 1983 and has 270 berths for yachts and small sailing craft.
Industry in the city is focused on the chemical and health care sectors. Several well-known British companies, including BP
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
, Smith & Nephew
Smith & Nephew
Smith & Nephew plc is a global medical devices company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of arthroscopy products, second-largest producer of advanced wound management products, third-largest producer of trauma and clinical therapy products and...
, Seven Seas, and Reckitt Benckiser
Reckitt Benckiser
Reckitt Benckiser plc is a global consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of household products and a major producer of consumer healthcare and personal products...
, have facilities in Hull.
The health care sector is further enhanced by the research facilities provided by the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
through the Institute of Woundcare and the Hull York Medical School
Hull York Medical School
The Hull York Medical School , is a medical school in England which took its first intake of students in 2003. The school was opened as a part of the British Government's attempts to train more doctors, which also saw Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Peninsula Medical School and University of...
partnerships. In recent years, with the decline of fishing and heavy industry, the retail sector, tourism, the arts and further and higher education sectors have played an increasingly prominent role in the process of economic regeneration and raising the profile of the city. In 2009 it was estimated that businesses in Hull deliver an annual turnover of almost £8 billion, and over 5 million annual visitors contribute almost £210 million to Hull's economy.
In January 2011 Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
and Associated British Ports signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the construction of wind energy machine manufacturing plant at Alexander Dock. The plan would require some modification of the dock to allow the ships, used for transporting the wind turbines, to dock and be loaded.
Retail
As the biggest settlement in the East Riding of Yorkshire and the local transport hub, Hull is a natural focus for retail shoppers. Major department stores in Hull include DebenhamsDebenhams
Debenhams plc is a British retailer operating under a department store format in the UK, Ireland and Denmark, and franchise stores in other countries. The Company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to around 160 shops...
, House of Fraser
House of Fraser
House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891 it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second...
and British Home Stores (BHS). The city has three main shopping centres, St. Stephen's
St. Stephen's Hull
St. Stephen's shopping centre, Hull opened on 20 September 2007 and today it attracts more than 10 million visitors a year. The shopping centre is a brownfield site development in the city centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. It cost £200 million to build and was a key development in the...
, Princes Quay
Princes Quay
Princes Quay is a shopping centre in the heart of Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The centre is unusual in that it is built on stilts over Prince's Dock after which it is named...
and the Prospect Centre. There are also a number of "retail parks", and suburban shopping centres including the North Point Shopping Centre at Bransholme
Bransholme
Bransholme is an area and a housing estate on the north-eastern side of Kingston upon Hull, England. The name Bransholme comes from an old Scandinavian word meaning Brand's water meadow ....
, St Andrews Quay on the Humber bank, as well as near Great Gutter lane (Willerby), Mount Pleasent (Holderness Road), Priory Park (near Hessle) and Kingswood retail park (Kingswood)
Whitefriargate is one of the shopping streets, along with King Edward Street and Carr lane.
The electrical retailer Comet Group was founded in the city as Comet Battery Stores Limited in 1933, the company's first superstore was opened in Hull in 1968.
The city's branch of Woolworth's
Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...
on King Edward closed in 2008,
and that of T J Hughes
T J Hughes
T J Hughes is a British discount department store brand. As an individual chain of shops T J Hughes emerged in Liverpool in 1925 and continued to trade until entering liquidation in 2011...
on site of the former C&A
C&A
C&A is an international chain of fashion retail clothing stores, with its European head offices in Vilvoorde , Belgium and Düsseldorf, Germany...
store on Ferensway in August 2011, following the parents companies bankrupcy. The main out of town shopping streets are Hessle Road, Holderness Road, Chanterlands Avenue, Beverley Road, as well as Princes Avenue
Princes Avenue (Hull)
The Avenues is an area of high status Victorian housing located in the northwest of Kingston upon Hull. It is formed by four main tree lined straight avenues running west off the NNE/SSW running Princes Avenue....
and Newland Avenue. Two covered shopping arcades dating remain in the town centre; the Hepworth and Paragon Arcades.
The Prospect Centre on Prospect Street is a smaller, older shopping centre with a range of chain stores, banks and fashion retailers. It contains branches of Boots, Claire's, a large Wilkinsons, Poundland, W H Smith
W H Smith
WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
, Santander, and Hull's main Post Office. At Bransholme, the North Point Shopping Centre (Bransholme Shopping Centre) contains a similar range of popular chain stores and budget-oriented retailers including Boyes and Heron Foods.
The Princes Quay Shopping Centre (1991) was built on stilts over the closed Prince's Dock, and houses a variety of chain stores and food outlets. It was originally built with four retail floors, known as "decks". The uppermost deck has housed a Vue
Vue (cinema)
Vue Entertainment , formerly known as SBC International Cinemas, is a cinema company in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The company was formed in May 2003 when SBC acquired 36 Warner Village cinemas. There are now 69 Vue cinemas, with 654 screens totaling 140,500 seats, including the rebranded...
cinema since December 2007.
Budget and discount retailers such as Boyes, Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...
, Peacocks
Peacocks (retailer)
Peacocks, is a fast fashion retailer based in Cardiff, Wales. The chain is owned by The Peacock Group plc and employs over 6,000 people. There are currently over 600 Peacocks stores in the United Kingdom and more than 200 in 12 overseas countries...
, Poundland
Poundland
Poundland is a British-based variety store chain which sells every item in its stores for £1. Established in April 1990 by Dave Dodd and Stephen Smith, Poundland stock a variety of around 3,000 home and kitchen-ware, gifts, healthcare and other products, across 16 categories many of which are brand...
and Wilkinsons have branches in the city. Hull has a good selection of supermarkets including several branches of Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
, Sainsbury's, the Co-operative
The Co-operative brand
The Co-operative is a common branding used by a variety of co-operatives based in the United Kingdom.Many in the UK mistakenly consider the Co-op to be a single national business, however each Co-operative is actually a franchise selling branded goods produced by the Co-operative Group The...
and budget food stores including Heron Foods
Heron Foods
Heron Foods Ltd is an English family-owned retail chain based in Hull with over 175 stores mainly in the North of England....
and Iceland.
During the early 2000s large areas of central Hull were marked as sites of regeneration to encourage retailing and commercial development. These areas included the proposed Quay West (cancelled 2010.
) and flagship St. Stephen's projects. The St. Stephen's development on Ferensway is Hull's is a 560000 square feet (52,025.7 m²) scheme, costing over £160 million. It is anchored by a large 24-hour Tesco Extra superstore and provides shop units, food outlets, a hotel, car parking; adjacent is Hull's Paragon Interchange completed in the same time period which includes a new bus station and renovated railway station with retail outlets.
Regeneration projects
World Trade Centre Hull & Humber
The World Trade Centre Hull & Humber is a world trade centre located in Kingston upon Hull, England and opened in 2008 after the completion of the building in 2007. It provides a service for UK based organisations looking to operate at an international level and also offers a specific entry point...
, is adding new high-quality office space to Hull's waterfront. Phase 1 of the project includes two office buildings (both complete) and 51 new apartments.
Phase 2 will include a new 200-bedroom 4-star hotel, a restaurant, and more high-quality office space.
During the early 2000s a £100 million residential development was planned for the east bank of the River Hull. This development, called the Boom, would include over 600 luxury riverside apartments, shops, boutiques, bistro cafés, a 120-bed luxury hotel, and health and education facilities. Linking the development to the city centre started in September 2009 with the construction of a swing footbridge across the River Hull which is described as an "iconic" addition to Hull's skyline.
The 50-stall indoor Edwardian Trinity Market, a grade II listed building, and Hepworth's arcade were modernised and renovated in the lated 2000s.
In 2003 the city established a Youth Enterprise Partnership to help support enterprising young people. Teams from Hull formed under this partnership have reached the National Finals of the Young Enterprise competition, and two teams have continued to the European Finals. The city has also established the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank to give financial support to qualifying individuals.
In June 2010 due to governmental budgetary cuts on public spending Hull Forward lost funding, and the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward
Yorkshire Forward
Yorkshire Forward is the regional development agency for the Yorkshire and the Humber region of the United Kingdom. It supports the development of business in the region by encouraging public and private investment in education, skills, environment and infrastructure...
was abolished.
Enterprise Zone
Under the plan firms moving into any of the agreed sites within the Enterprise Zone will be offered a range of start-up incentives like they include not having to pay business rates for five years, saving up to £255,000 per company.A new Siemens wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
plant was planned to be built in Hull’s Alexandra Dock as part of Hull’s bid for a new Enterprise Zone along a three-mile stretch of Hedon Road.
A 12.5-acre site waste-to-energy
Waste-to-energy
Waste-to-energy or energy-from-waste is the process of creating energy in the form of electricity or heat from the incineration of waste source. WtE is a form of energy recovery...
centre costing in the region of £150,000,000, could also be built in Hull after plans were revealed for a major renewables scheme by the Barrow-upon-Humber-based engineering group, Spencer has submitted plans to Hull City Council for Energy Works, in a project that would see up to 200,000 tonnes of organic material converted into energy each year. Charlie Spencer, chief executive of C Spencer Ltd, said: "This will be the first project of its kind in the UK." The new ‘Energy Works’, which is predicted to create 60 permanent jobs and 200 others in the construction phase, aims to significantly reduce the need for waste to go to landfill.
The planed project will be built on a between the River Hull and Cleveland Street and convert up to 20,000 tonnes of organic material into energy each year and will produce enough energy to power roughly 25,000 by relying on a process called advanced gasification. The power station could be up and running in 2014, if given planning permission by the end of 2011, since construction is expected to take two years.
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
said it was too early to comment on the proposals for the new plant, planned for Cleveland Street. A previous plan for an incinerator at Saltend to burn waste was opposed by a variety of local groups in 2010.
They were concerned that some materials entering the mix that could be recycled wanted the government to prioritise recycling and for the UK to boost recycling rates to 70%.
The planning application was submitted to Hull City Council
Hull City Council
Hull City Council is the governing body for the unitary authority and city of Kingston upon Hull. It was created in 1972 as the successor to the Corporation of Hull, which was also known as Hull Corporation....
for consideration in mid-2011.
Culture
Hull has a vibrant tradition of arts and culture with several museums of national importance. The city has a strong theatrical tradition with some famous actors and writers having been born and lived in Hull. The city's arts and heritage have played an important role in attracting visitors and encouraging tourism in recent efforts at regeneration. Hull has a diverse range of architecture and this is complemented by parks and squares and a number of statues and modern sculptures.Museums
Hull's Museum Quarter, on the High Street in the heart of the Old Town, consists of Wilberforce HouseWilberforce House
Wilberforce House is the birth place of William Wilberforce, the famous abolitionist, and is located in High Street, Kingston upon Hull, England. Like the nearby Blaydes House and Maister House, it was formerly a Merchant's house with access to quayside on the River Hull...
, the Arctic Corsair
Arctic Corsair
The Arctic Corsair ' is a deep-sea trawler that was converted to a museum ship in 1999. It is berthed between Drypool Bridge and Myton Bridge in the river Hull in Hull, England, and is part of the city's Museums Quarter....
, the Hull and East Riding Museum (which contains the Hasholme Logboat
Hasholme Logboat
Hasholme logboat is a late Iron Age boat discovered at Hasholme, an area of civil parish of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire....
– Britain's largest surviving prehistoric logboat), and the Streetlife Museum of Transport
Streetlife museum of transport
The Streetlife Museum of Transport is a transport museum located in Kingston upon Hull, England. The roots of the collection date back to the early 20th century, however the purpose-built museum the collection is housed in was opened in 1989 by the then Hull East MP, John Prescott...
. Other museums and visitor attractions include the Ferens Art Gallery
Ferens Art Gallery
The Ferens Art Gallery is an art gallery in the English city of Kingston upon Hull. The site and money for the gallery were donated to the city by Thomas Ferens, after whom it is named. Opened in 1927,...
with a good range of art and regular exhibitions, the Maritime Museum in Victoria Square, the Spurn Lightship
Spurn Lightship
The Spurn Lightship is a lightvessel currently anchored in Hull Marina in the British city of Kingston upon Hull, England. The ship was built in 1927 and served for 48 years as a navigation aid in the approaches of the Humber Estuary, were it was stationed 4½ miles east of Spurn Point...
, the Yorkshire Water Museum, and the Deep
The Deep (aquarium)
-External links:* in association with the University of Hull*...
, the world's only submarium.
The recently refurbished Seven Seas Fish Trail marks Hull's fishing heritage, leading its followers through old and new sections of the city, following a wide variety of sealife engraved in the pavement.
Visual culture and sculpture
Artist and Royal Academician David RemfryDavid Remfry
David Remfry, MBE RA is a British painter currently living in New York City. Best known for his life-size watercolors of urban scenes and nightclubs, his work is held by many museums in the United States of America and United Kingdom.-Exhibitions:Remfry's work is based on the figure...
grew up in Hull and studied at the Hull College of Art (now part of Lincoln University) from 1959–64. Remfry has had two solo exhibitions at the Ferens Art Gallery in 1975 and 2005. Hull has a number of historical statues such as the Wilberforce Memorial in Queen's Gardens and the gilded King William III statue on Market Place (known locally as "King Billy").
There is a statue of Hull-born Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson CBE, was a pioneering English aviator. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, Johnson set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s...
in Prospect Street. In recent years a number of modern art sculptures and heritage trails have been installed around Hull. These include a figure looking out to the Humber
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...
called 'Voyage' which has a twin in Iceland. In July 2011, this artwork was reported stolen. There is a shark sculpture outside The Deep
The Deep (aquarium)
-External links:* in association with the University of Hull*...
and a fountain and installation called 'Tower of Light' outside Britannia House on the corner of Spring Bank.
In 2010 a public art event in Hull city centre entitled Larkin with Toads displayed 40 individually decorated giant toad models as the centrepiece of the Larkin 25
Larkin 25
Larkin 25 was an arts festival and cultural event in Kingston upon Hull, England, organised to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet and University of Hull librarian, Philip Larkin...
festival. Most of these sculptures have since been sold off for charity and transported to their new owners. Visitors to Hull's Paragon Interchange are now greeted by the new statue of Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
unveiled on 2 December 2010.
Theatres
The Hull Truck Theatre
Hull Truck Theatre
The Hull Truck Theatre is a theatre in Kingston upon Hull, England which presents high quality drama productions.It also tours its productions on a regular basis....
is a smaller independent theatre, established in 1971,
that regularly features plays, notably those written by John Godber
John Godber
John Harry Godber is an English dramatist, known mainly for his observational comedies. In the 'Plays and Players Yearbook' for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. He has a wife and 2 children.-Biography:Godber was...
.
Since April 2009, the Hull Truck Theatre has had a new £14.5 million, 440 seat venue in the St. Stephen's Hull
St. Stephen's Hull
St. Stephen's shopping centre, Hull opened on 20 September 2007 and today it attracts more than 10 million visitors a year. The shopping centre is a brownfield site development in the city centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. It cost £200 million to build and was a key development in the...
development replacing the old complex on Spring Street. The playwright Alan Plater
Alan Plater
Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...
was brought up in Hull and was associated with Hull Truck Theatre. The Northern Theatre Company, established in 1975, is also based in the city and offers youth training in acting.
Hull has produced a number of veteran stage and TV actors. Sir Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
, Ian Carmichael
Ian Carmichael
Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.-Early life:Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA...
and Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...
were born and raised in Hull. Younger actors Reece Shearsmith
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson "Reece" Shearsmith is an English actor and writer. He is most famous for his work as part of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and co-writer Jeremy Dyson.-Early life:...
, Debra Stephenson
Debra Stephenson
Debra Stephenson is an English actress, comedian, impressionist and singer.-Career:At the age of fourteen Stephenson appeared on BBC TV's Opportunity Knocks, winning her way through to the All-Winners' Final, broadcast live from the London Palladium...
and Liam Garrigan
Liam Garrigan
Liam Garrigan is an English theatre and television actor. As a youth he attended classes at Kingston upon Hull's Northern Stage Company and was a student at Wyke College, Kingston upon Hull.Garrigan trained as a professional actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the City of London...
were also born in Hull. Garrigan attended Hull's Northern Theatre Company and Wyke College
Wyke College
Wyke College is a further education Sixth Form College in Hull, England.In October 2008 the £7 million Ash building was opened by Stephen Greep, chief executive of Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. The total investment in the project which will cover three new buildings is...
.
In 1914, there were 29 cinemas in Hull
Closed cinemas in Kingston upon Hull
British History Online has published a comprehensive listing of the first 'cinemas' in Hull, which were created by converting many existing buildings ....
but most of these have now closed. The first purpose-built cinema was the Prince's Hall in George Street which opened in 1910. It was subsequently renamed the Curzon.
Poetry
Hull has attracted the attention of poets to the extent that the Australian author Peter PorterPeter Porter (poet)
Peter Neville Frederick Porter, OAM was a British-based Australian poet.-Life:Porter was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1929. His mother, Marion, died of a burst gall-bladder in 1938. He attended the Church of England Grammar School and left school at 18, and went to work as a trainee journalist...
has described it as "the most poetic city in England".
Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
set many of his poems in Hull; these include "The Whitsun Weddings", "Toads", and "Here". Scottish-born Douglas Dunn
Douglas Dunn
Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull...
's Terry Street, a portrait of working-class Hull life, is one the outstanding poetry collections of the 1970s.
Dunn forged close associations with such Hull poets as Peter Didsbury
Peter didsbury
Peter Didsbury is an English poet who was born in Fleetwood, Lancashire but lived most of his life in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
and Sean O'Brien
Sean O'Brien (writer)
Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic, playwright. Prizes he has garnered include the Eric Gregory Award , the Somerset Maugham Award , the Cholmondeley Award , the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize...
; the works of some of these writers appear in the 1982 Bloodaxe anthology A Rumoured City, a work that Dunn edited. Andrew Motion
Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...
, past Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, lectured at the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
between 1976 and 1981, and Roger McGough
Roger McGough
Roger Joseph McGough CBE is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly...
studied there. Both poets are speaking at the Humber Mouth Festival in 2010. Contemporary poets associated with Hull are Maggie Hannan, David Wheatley, and Caitriona O'Reilly
Caitriona O'Reilly
Caitríona O'Reilly is an Irish poet and critic. She took BA and PhD degrees in Archaeology and English at Trinity College, Dublin, and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her poetry collection, The Nowhere Birds ; she has also held the Harper-Wood Studentship from St John's...
.
17th century Metaphysical Poet and parliamentarian Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...
was born nearby, grew up and was educated in the city. There is a statue in his honour in the Market Square (Trinity Square), set against the backdrop of his alma mater Hull Grammar School
Hull Grammar School
Hull Grammar School was an independent secondary school in Hull, England, founded in 1486 by Dr. John Alcock. The school merged with Hull High School to form Hull Collegiate School in 2005.- History :The seventeenth oldest independent school in the U.K...
.
Classical
In the field of classical music, Hull is home to Hull SinfoniettaHull Sinfonietta
Hull Sinfonietta is a sinfonietta based in Hull in North-East England. The organisation is recognised and supported by Hull City Council, Arts Council England , the PRS Foundation for New Music and University of Hull....
, the largest professional chamber ensemble in the Humber region, and also the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra
Hull Philharmonic Orchestra
The Hull Philharmonic Orchestra is an amateur orchestra based in Kingston upon Hull, England. Andrew Penny has been its musical director and conductor since 1982....
, one of the oldest amateur orchestras in the country. The Hull Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, established in 1952,
the Hull Choral Union, the Hull Bach Choir – which specialises in the performance of 17th and 18th century choral music, the Hull Male Voice Choir, the Arterian Singers and two Gilbert & Sullivan Societies: the Dagger Lane Operatic Society and the Hull Savoyards are also based in Hull. There are two brass bands, the East Yorkshire Motor Services Band, who are the current North of England Area Brass Band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
Champions, and East Riding of Yorkshire Band.
Hull City Hall annually plays host to major British and European symphony Orchestras with its 'International Masters' orchestral concert season. During the 2009–10 season visiting orchestra's included the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra
Saint Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra
The Saint Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra , founded in 1931, is one of the two symphony orchetras belonging to the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia society, the other being the more famous Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in the 19th century.The Saint Petersburg Academic...
and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Czech National Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra in Prague in the Czech Republic. It was established in 1993 by trumpet player Jan Hasenöhrl...
. Internationally renowned touring pop, rock, and comedy acts also regularly play the City Hall.
Rock and Pop
On the popular music scene, in the 1960s, Mick RonsonMick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
of the Hull band Rats worked closely with David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
and was heavily involved in production of the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English musician David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a rock star named Ziggy Stardust. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music...
. Ronson later went on to record with Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Morrissey
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
and The Wildhearts
The Wildhearts
The Wildhearts are a British rock group originally formed in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as The Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica...
. There is a Mick Ronson Memorial Stage in Queen's Gardens
Queen's Gardens, Hull
Queen's Gardens is a sequence of gardens in the centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. They are set out within a area that until 1930 was filled with the waters of Queen's Dock...
in Hull.
In the 1980s, Hull groups such as The Red Guitars
Red Guitars
The Red Guitars were an English indie rock band active from 1982 to 1986. Based in Hull, the Red Guitars' first single "Good Technology" was a minor hit, selling 60,000 copies...
, The Housemartins
The Housemartins
The Housemartins were an English indie pop band that was active in the 1980s. Many of the Housemartins' lyrics were a mixture of Marxist politics and Christianity, reflecting singer Paul Heaton's beliefs at the time .-Formation:The band was formed in late 1983 by Paul Heaton and...
and Everything But the Girl
Everything but the Girl
Everything but the Girl was a two-person English band, formed in Hull during 1981, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, and singer Ben Watt . They are currently inactive although vocalist Tracey Thorn hinted that they may reform someday...
found mainstream success. Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Paul David Heaton is an English singer-songwriter. He was a member of The Housemartins, who disbanded in 1988, and a member of The Beautiful South, who disbanded in 2007. He is currently pursuing a solo career....
, former member of The Housemartins
The Housemartins
The Housemartins were an English indie pop band that was active in the 1980s. Many of the Housemartins' lyrics were a mixture of Marxist politics and Christianity, reflecting singer Paul Heaton's beliefs at the time .-Formation:The band was formed in late 1983 by Paul Heaton and...
went on to front The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South were an English alternative rock group formed at the end of the 1980s by two former members of Hull group The Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway. The duo were initially joined by Sean Welch , Dave Stead and Dave Rotheray , all of whom stayed with the group throughout...
. Another former member of The Housemartins, Norman Cook, now performs as Fatboy Slim
Fatboy Slim
Norman Quentin Cook better known by his former stage name Fatboy Slim, is a British DJ, electronic dance music musician, and record producer. He is a pioneer of the big beat genre that achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s...
. In 1983, Hull-born Paul Anthony Cook, Stuart Matthewman and Paul Spencer Denman formed the group Sade
Sade (band)
Sade is a British smooth jazz band that formed in 1983, named for Nigerian lead singer Sade Adu. Their music features elements of R&B, soul, jazz, and soft rock....
. In 1984, the singer Helen Adu
Sade Adu
Helen Folasade Adu OBE , is a British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. She first achieved success in the 1980s as the frontwoman and lead vocalist of the Brit and Grammy Award winning English group Sade.-Biography:Sade was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria...
signed to CBS and the group released the album Diamond Life. The album went Triple Platinum in the UK. Vocalist and actor Roland Gift
Roland Gift
Roland Lee Gift is a British singer and actor. He was the lead singer of the band Fine Young Cannibals.-Biography:...
, who formed the Fine Young Cannibals
Fine Young Cannibals
Fine Young Cannibals were a British band formed in Birmingham, England, in 1984, by bassist David Steele and guitarist Andy Cox , and singer Roland Gift...
, grew up in Hull.
The pioneering industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
band Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...
formed in Hull; Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...
(Neil Megson) attended Hull University between 1968 and 1969, where he met Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti is best known as a performance artist and for her time in Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey....
(Christine Newby), who was born in the city, and first became part of the Hull performance art group COUM Transmissions
COUM Transmissions
COUM Transmissions was a performance art group interested in pushing boundaries, influenced by Dada and the Merry Pranksters.CT was a whimsical, eccentric as well as confrontational band and performance art group, from Hull, Yorkshire – a collective the constants of which were its...
in 1970.
The record label Pork Recordings
Pork Recordings
Pork Recordings is a record label based in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, England, that specialises in electronica, mostly in the downtempo or chill-out styles....
started in Hull in the mid-1990s and has released music by Fila Brazillia
Fila Brazillia
Fila Brazillia was an electronica collaboration from Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire in North-East England. Formed in 1990 by Steve Cobby and David McSherry...
,
Mr Beasley and The Brilliance among others. The Sesh night has released four DIY compilations featuring the cream of Hull's live music scene and there are currently a few labels emerging in the city, including Purple Worm Records and Empire.
The Adelphi is a popular local venue for alternative live music in the city, and has achieved notability outside Hull, having hosted such bands as The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses are an English alternative rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement that was active during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
, and Oasis
Oasis (band)
Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
in its history, while the Springhead caters to a variety of bands and has been recognised nationally as a Live Music Pub of the Year.
Nightlife, bars and pubs
The drinking culture in Hull city centre tends towards late bars, while the wine bars and pubs around Hull University and its accommodation area are popular with students. In particular, the areas around Newland Avenue and Prince's Avenue have seen a rapid expansion in continental-style bars and cafes encouraged by the redesign of the street layout.Festivals
Roy Hattersley
Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...
, Andrew Motion and Roger McGough
Roger McGough
Roger Joseph McGough CBE is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly...
. This was followed, on 17 July 2010, by the Sea Fever Festival, an International Sea Shanty
Sea shanty
A shanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. Shanties became ubiquitous in the 19th century era of the wind-driven packet and clipper ships...
Festival, July being the new date for the sea shanty.
The annual Hull Jazz Festival takes place around the Marina
Hull Marina
Hull Marina is a marina for pleasure boats situated in the English city of Kingston upon Hull. It was opened in 1983 on the site of the former Railway dock and Humber docks....
area for a week at the beginning of August.
As of 2008 Hull has also held Freedom Festival
Freedom Festival, Hull
The Freedom Festival is an annual Music and Performance Arts Festival held in the city of Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Named in honour of the slave trade abolitionist, MP and son of Hull, William Wilberforce.-2008:...
; an annual free arts and live music
Live Music
Live Music is a reggaeton company owned by DJ Giann.-Artists:* Jowell & Randy* Tony Lenta* Watussi* De La Ghetto* Guelo Star* Galante "El Emperador"-Producers:*DJ Blass*Dexter*Mr. Greenz*DJ Giann*Los Hitmen*Dirty Joe*ALX...
event that celebrates freedom in all its forms.
Early October sees the arrival of Hull Fair
Hull Fair
Hull Fair is one of Europe's largest travelling funfairs, which comes to Hull, England for one week, from noon on Friday to midnight the following Saturday, encompassing the second Tuesday of October each year. The fair is open every day between these days except Sunday...
which is one of Europe's largest travelling funfair
Funfair
A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...
s and takes place on land adjacent to the KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
.
The Hull Global Food Festival held its third annual event in the city's Queen Victoria Square for three days – 4–6 September 2009. According to officials, the event in 2007 attracted 125,000 visitors and brought some £5 million in revenue to the area.
In 2007 the Hull Metalfest began in the Welly Club, it featured major label bands from the United States, Canada and Italy, as well as the UK.
The first Hull Comedy Festival
Hull Comedy Festival
The Hull Comedy Festival is an annual event that takes place in Kingston upon Hull, England.-Background:It was established in 2006, when a local businessman John Gilbert received funding from Hull Business Improvement District to develop a sustainable event that would benefit the evening...
, which included performers such as Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera...
and Russell Howard
Russell Howard
Russell Joseph Howard is an English comedian best known for his TV show Russell Howard's Good News and his appearances on the topical panel TV show Mock The Week...
was held in 2007.
In 2010, Hull marked the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
with the Larkin 25
Larkin 25
Larkin 25 was an arts festival and cultural event in Kingston upon Hull, England, organised to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet and University of Hull librarian, Philip Larkin...
Festival. This included the popular Larkin with Toads public art event. The 40 Larkin toads were displayed around Hull and later sold off in a charity auction. A charity appeal raised funds to cast a life-size bronze statue of Philip Larkin, to a design by Martin Jennings, at Hull Paragon Interchange. The statue was unveiled at a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor of Hull on 2 December 2010, the 25th anniversary of Larkin's death. It bears an inscription drawn from the first line of Larkin's poem, 'The Whitsun Weddings
The Whitsun Weddings (poem)
"The Whitsun Weddings" is one of the best known poems by British poet Philip Larkin. It was written and rewritten and finally published in the 1964 collection of poems, also called The Whitsun Weddings. It is one of three poems that Larkin wrote about train journeys.The poem comprises eight verses...
'.
Parks and green spaces
Hull has a large number of parks and green spaces. These include East ParkEast Park, Hull
East Park, Hull is a major park of about situated on the Holderness Road in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. East Park is registered a Grade II listed site by English Heritage.-History:...
, Pearson Park
Pearson Park
Pearson Park was the first public park to be opened in Kingston upon Hull, England. It is situated about northwest of the city centre of Hull with its main entrance on Beverley Road and its western boundary adjoining Princes Avenue. It provides a range of popular leisure facilities for local...
, Pickering Park
Pickering Park, Kingston upon Hull
Pickering Park is a park in the western suburbs of Kingston upon Hull, on the north side of Hessle Road, near Anlaby.-Description and facilities:...
and West Park. West Park is home to Hull's KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
. Pearson Park contains a lake and a 'Victorian Conservatory' housing birds and reptiles. East Park has a large boating lake and a collection of birds and animals. They are registered Grade II listed sites by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
.
The city centre has the large Queen's Gardens
Queen's Gardens, Hull
Queen's Gardens is a sequence of gardens in the centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. They are set out within a area that until 1930 was filled with the waters of Queen's Dock...
parkland at its heart. This was originally built as formal ornamental gardens used to fill in the former Queen's Dock. It is now a more flexible grassed and landscaped area used for concerts and festivals, but retains a large ornamental flower circus and fountain at its western end.
The streets of Hull's suburban areas also lined with large numbers of trees, particularly the Avenues area around Princes Avenue and Boulevard to the west. Many of the old trees in the Avenues district have been felled in recent years with the stumps carved into a variety of 'living sculptures'. Other green areas include the University area and parts of Beverley Road
Beverley Road
Beverley Road is one of several major roads that run out of the city of Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It runs North from Hull city centre and carries the designation of A1079. Upon leaving the city boundaries, Beverley Road continues north towards the town of Beverley becoming the...
to the north.
West Hull has a district known as 'Botanic'. This recalls the short-lived Botanic Garden that once existed on the site now occupied by Hymers College
Hymers College
Hymers College is a co-educational independent school located on the site of the old Botanic Gardens of Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1893 as a boys' school, but expanded to include girls from the 1970s onwards.-History:...
. Elephants once lived nearby in the former Zoological Gardens on Spring Bank Avenue and were paraded in the local streets. The land has since been redeveloped. There was also a former Botanic Garden between Hessle Road and the Anlaby Road commemorated by Linnaeus Street.
Media
Hull Daily Mail
The Hull Daily Mail is the local daily newspaper for Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire and is published along with the free weekly, Hull Advertiser. There used to be a weekly sports paper, the SportsMail, but this folded in 2006...
, whose circulation area covers much of East Yorkshire. A free paper, The Hull Advertiser, is issued weekly by the same publisher. Local listings and what's-on guides include Tenfoot City Magazine and Sandman Magazine
Sandman (magazine)
Sandman was a free music magazine launched in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, in September 2002. Later versions were created, specifically covering Leeds, Kingston upon Hull, York, Nottingham and Manchester before all five editions were amalgamated into one compendium edition which also covered...
. The BBC has its Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, sometimes abbreviated to BBC Yorks & Lincs, is the name for the BBC's twelfth English Region, based in Hull and created from the division of the former BBC North region, based in Leeds...
regional headquarters at Queen's Gardens
Queen's Gardens, Hull
Queen's Gardens is a sequence of gardens in the centre of Kingston upon Hull, England. They are set out within a area that until 1930 was filled with the waters of Queen's Dock...
, from which the regional news programme Look North
BBC Look North (East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)
BBC Look North is the BBC's regional TV news service for East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, north Norfolk and northeast Cambridgeshire produced by BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire...
is broadcast. Radio services come from BBC Radio Humberside
BBC Radio Humberside
BBC Radio Humberside is a BBC Local Radio service covering the area of the former English county of Humberside, which was returned to North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire the East Riding of Yorkshire and the City of Kingston upon Hull on 1 April 1996....
, Viking FM, KCFM, Magic 1161
Magic 1161
Magic 1161 is a commercial radio station which broadcasts to the East Riding of Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire in England since 1997.It is the AM sister station of Viking FM and is a part of the Magic Radio Network within the Bauer Radio group....
, 106.9FM WHCR
106.9FM WHCR
West Hull Community Radio is a local community radio station serving the areas of West Hull, England and surrounding towns and villages.-About:...
, Hull University Union's Jam 1575, and Kingstown Radio
Kingstown Radio
Kingstown Radio is a hospital radio station based in Kingston upon Hull, England broadcasting on 1350 kHz and the hospedia system.In July 2011, the station celebrated it's 50th anniversary!-The Early Years:...
, the hospital-based radio station, which all broadcast to the city.
Sport
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
, golf, darts
Darts
Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...
, athletics and pigeon racing
Pigeon racing
Pigeon racing is the sport of releasing specially trained racing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance...
.
The city's professional football club, Hull City A.F.C.
Hull City A.F.C.
Hull City Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, founded in 1904. The club participates in the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football...
(The Tigers), play in the Championship
Championship
Championship is a term used in sport to refer to various forms of competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.- Title match system :...
, the second tier of the English football league system
English football league system
The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for association football clubs in England, with six teams from Wales also competing...
after relegation from the Premier League in season 2009–10. The team play at the KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
.
Hull is also a rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
hub, having two clubs who play in the engage Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
competition. Hull F.C., alongside the city's football club Hull City, play at the KC Stadium while Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers or Hull KR is an English professional rugby league football club based in Hull, England. The club formed in 1882 and currently competes in Super League, having won promotion from National League One in 2006...
play at Craven Park in East Hull. There are also several lower league teams in the city, such as East Hull
East Hull
East Hull RLFC is an amateur rugby league team from Kingston upon Hull. They play their home matches at Rosmead Sports Centre, Hull and currently compete in the National Conference League Premier Division. The team's strip colours are blue and white and the away colours are red and white. The...
, West Hull
West Hull
West Hull RLFC is an amateur rugby league club from Kingston upon Hull, currently playing in the National Conference League Premier Division. The team plays their home matches at Walter Simpson Park in Hull and their strip colours are green and gold....
, Hull Dockers
Hull Dockers
Hull Dockers ARLFC is an amateur rugby league team from Kingston upon Hull, playing in the National Conference League. They currently play their home matches at The Willow Club, Holderness Road and their playing colours are green and white.-External links:*...
and Hull Isberg, who all play in the National Conference League
National Conference League
The National Conference League is the top league in the pyramid of amateur rugby leagues run by the British Amateur Rugby League Association...
. Rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
is catered for by Hull Ionians
Hull Ionians
Hull Ionians are a rugby union club in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Hull Ionians RUFC play in National Division 2 North.Their home ground is Brantingham Park that opened in September 1995. It is situated in Brantingham off the A63 road between Brough and South Cave.-Club history:Hull...
who play at Brantingham
Brantingham
Brantingham is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated about north of Brough, and west of Kingston upon Hull. It lies to the north of the A63 road...
Park. and Hull RUFC
Hull RUFC
Hull RUFC are a rugby union club based in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Hull RUFC play in National Division 2 North.They are currently based at Hull YPI having relocated there for the 2009–2010 season.-Roll of honour:-Notable players:...
who are based in the city.
The city has two athletics clubs based at the Costello Stadium in the west of the city – Kingston upon Hull Athletics Club and Hull Achilies Athletics Club.
Cycling wise the city is home to Hull Cycle Speedway Club situated at the Hessle raceway near the Humber bridge. The side race in the sports Northern league and won both the league titles in 2008. Other cycling clubs also operate throughout the city including Hull Thursday, the areas road racing group.
The city also has Hull Arena,
a large ice rink
Ice rink
An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can skate or play winter sports. Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, figure skating and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows...
and concert venue, which is home to the Hull Stingrays
Hull Stingrays
Hull Stingrays are a British ice hockey club from Kingston upon Hull. They were formed in 2003 and play their home games at Hull Arena.The Stingrays replaced previous clubs Hull Thunder 1999–2002, Kingston Hawks 1996–1998, Humberside Hawks 1993–1995, and Humberside Seahawks 1988–1992...
ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
team who play in the Elite Ice Hockey League
Elite Ice Hockey League
Several competitions fall under the jurisdiction of the Elite League. In 2006–07, the EIHL ran a total of four competitions: the league, playoffs, Challenge Cup and Knockout Cup. The league consists of a single division, each team playing three home games and three away games against the other...
. It is also home to the Kingston Kestrels sledge hockey
Sledge hockey
Sledge hockey is a sport that was designed to allow participants who have a physical disability to play the game of ice hockey. Ice sledge hockey was invented in the early 1960s in Stockholm, Sweden at a rehabilitation center...
team. In August 2010, Hull Daily Mail reported that Hull Stingrays was facing closure, following a financial crisis. The club was subsequently saved from closure following a takeover by Coventry Blaze
Coventry Blaze
Coventry Blaze are an ice hockey team based in Coventry, England. They currently compete in the British Elite Ice Hockey League .-Club history:...
.
The Hull Hornets
Hull Hornets
Hull Hornets were an American Football team based in Kingston upon Hull. In 2010 the Hornets ended their membership in BAFA and are not expected to return to play.-Background:...
American Football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
Club which acquired full member status of the British American Football League
British American Football League
The British American Football League was the United Kingdom's primary American Football league from 1998 until 2010. It was formerly known as the British Senior League until 2005. BAFL was the trading name for Gridiron Football League Ltd incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee....
on 5 November 2006 and played in the BAFL Division 2 Central league for 2007. Greyhound racing returned to the city on 25 October 2007 when The Boulevard
The Boulevard (Stadium)
The Boulevard was a multi-purpose stadium in Hull, England. The venue was saved from demolition and reopened on 25 October 2007 as the home of greyhound racing in the city. It can also be used as a community stadium hosting amateur rugby league matches...
stadium re-opened as a venue for the sport.
In mid-2006 Hull was home to the professional wrestling company One Pro Wrestling
One Pro Wrestling
One Pro Wrestling was a British professional wrestling promotion. 1PW was founded in 2005 by Steven Gauntley until the promotion went into liquidation in 2007; it was restarted within the same year..It ended in August 2011....
, which held the Devils Due event on 27 July in the Gemtec Arena
Gemtec Arena
The Bonus Arena is a sports centre located next to the Kingston Communications Stadium in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, England....
. From 16 May 2008, Hull gained its own homegrown wrestling company based at the Eastmount Recreation Centre-—New Generation Wrestling—-that have featured the likes of El Ligero, Kris Travis, Martin Kirby and Alex Shane
Alex Shane
Alexander Daniel Spilling is a British professional wrestler who is best known by his ring name "The Ascension" Alex Shane. Spilling also works as a promoter and wrestling teacher.-Early career:...
.
The city played host to the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, a tough 35000 miles (56,326.9 km) race around the globe, for the 2009–10 race which started on 13 September 2009 and finished on 17 July 2010. The locally named yacht, Hull and Humber, captained by Danny Watson, achieved second place in the 2007–2008 race.
Transport
M62 motorway
The M62 motorway is a west–east trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting the cities of Liverpool and Hull via Manchester and Leeds. The road also forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E20 and E22...
/A63 road
A63 road
The A63 is a major road in Yorkshire, England between Leeds and Hull.-Leeds – Howden:The route out to Selby is shadowed by the Leeds-Selby railway....
, one of the main east–west routes in northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
. It provides a link to the cities of Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, as well as the rest of the country via the UK motorway network. The motorway itself ends some distance from the city; the rest of the route is along the A63 dual carriageway. This east–west route forms a small part of the European road route E20
European route E20
The European route E 20 is part of the United Nations International E-road network.It runs roughly west-east through Ireland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and finally Russia. The length is . The road is not continuous, at three points, a sea crossing is required. ...
.
Hull is close to the Humber Bridge
Humber Bridge
The Humber Bridge, near Kingston upon Hull, England, is a 2,220 m single-span suspension bridge, which opened to traffic on 24 June 1981. It is the fifth-largest of its type in the world...
, which provides road links to destinations south of the Humber
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...
. It was built between 1972 and 1981, and at the time was the longest single-span suspension bridge
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
in the world. It is now fifth on the list.
Before the bridge was built, those wishing to cross the Humber had to either take a ferry or travel inland as far as Goole
Goole
Goole is a town, civil parish and port located approximately inland on the confluence of the rivers Don and Ouse in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England...
.
Public transport within the city is provided by two main bus operators: Stagecoach in Hull
Stagecoach in Hull
Stagecoach in Hull is the sector of the Stagecoach Group that operates buses in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest bus fleet in the city.-History:...
and East Yorkshire Motor Services
East Yorkshire Motor Services
East Yorkshire Motor Services is a large bus and coach operator which operates throughout Kingston upon Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, the North Yorkshire coast and the North York Moors. In and around Scarborough, EYMS operates as Scarborough & District Motor Services...
(EYMS). A smaller operator, Alpha Bus and Coach, provides one of the two Park and Ride
Park and ride
Park and ride facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system , or carpool for the rest of their trip...
services in the city and CT Plus the other, having taken over the contract in November 2009 from EYMS.
Generally, routes within the city are operated by Stagecoach and those which leave the city are operated by EYMS.
Hull Paragon Interchange, opened on 16 September 2007,
is the city's transport hub, combining the main bus and rail termini in an integrated complex. It is expected to have 24,000 people passing through the complex each day.
From the railway terminus, services run to certain other parts of the UK. These include through expresses to London, up to seven per day provided by First Hull Trains and one a day (the Hull Executive) by East Coast
East Coast (train operating company)
East Coast is a British train operating company running high-speed passenger services on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland...
. Other long-distance rail services from Hull are provided by First Transpennine Express
First TransPennine Express
First TransPennine Express is a British train operating company. It is a joint operation between First Group and Keolis . It operates regular passenger services in northern England, including services linking the west and east coasts across the Pennines...
serving Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. The nearest access to fast East Coast Main Line
East Coast Main Line
The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...
services northwards to Teesside
Teesside
Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...
, Tyneside
Tyneside
Tyneside is a conurbation in North East England, defined by the Office of National Statistics, which is home to over 80% of the population of Tyne and Wear. It includes the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside — all settlements on...
and Scotland is via either or , in either case requiring a connecting journey by local train from Hull. Hull also has no through trains to the West Midlands and beyond. Northern Rail
Northern Rail
Northern Rail is a British train operating company that has operated local passenger services in Northern England since 2004. Northern Rail's owner, Serco-Abellio, is a consortium formed of Abellio and Serco, an international operator of public transport systems...
operates regular local stopping trains to , and , and the coastal towns of Bridlington
Bridlington
Bridlington is a seaside resort, minor sea fishing port and civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It has a static population of over 33,000, which rises considerably during the tourist season...
and Scarborough, along with services to Selby
Selby
Selby is a town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Situated south of the city of York, along the course of the River Ouse, Selby is the largest and, with a population of 13,012, most populous settlement of the wider Selby local government district.Historically a part of the West Riding...
, York, Doncaster and Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
.
P&O Ferries
P&O Ferries
P&O Ferries is the current name for the amalgamation of a range of ferry services that operated from the United Kingdom to Ireland and Continental Europe...
provide daily overnight ferry services from King George Dock in Hull to Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
and Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
.
Services to Rotterdam are worked by ferries Pride of Rotterdam and Pride of Hull.
The nearest airport is Humberside Airport
Humberside Airport
-Cargo flights:Icelandair Cargo operate a weekly Sunday flight from Keflavík which then departs to Liege-Passenger statistics:-Bus service:An hourly daytime bus service runs from Grimsby and Hull to the airport from Monday to Saturday.-External links:**...
, 20 miles (32 km) away in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, which provides a few charter flights but also has high-frequency flights to Amsterdam with KLM and Aberdeen with Eastern Airways
Eastern Airways
Eastern Airways is an airline with its head office at Humberside Airport in Kirmington, North Lincolnshire, England. It operates scheduled domestic and international services and private charter services...
each day. Robin Hood Airport
Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield
Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield is an international airport located at the former RAF Finningley airbase at Finningley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster within South Yorkshire, England. The airport lies southeast of Doncaster and east of Sheffield.The airport is operated by Peel...
in South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...
is 48 miles (77 km) from Hull city centre and provides a wider choice of charter flights as well as a number of low-cost flights to certain European destinations.
Road transport in Hull suffers from delays caused both by the many bridges over the navigable River Hull
River Hull
The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the north of England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of York charged tolls for its use, it became a free...
, which bisects the city and which can cause disruption at busy times, and from the remaining three railway level crossing
Level crossing
A level crossing occurs where a railway line is intersected by a road or path onone level, without recourse to a bridge or tunnel. It is a type of at-grade intersection. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion...
s in the city. The level-crossing problem was greatly relieved during the 1960s by the closure of the Hornsea
Hull and Hornsea Railway
The Hull and Hornsea Railway was a branch line in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, which connected the city of Kingston upon Hull with the east coast seaside holiday resort of Hornsea.-Early proposals and construction:...
and Withernsea
Hull and Holderness Railway
The Hull and Holderness Railway was a branch line in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which connected the city of Kingston upon Hull with the North Sea coast at Withernsea.-Background:...
branch lines, by the transfer of all goods traffic to the high-level line
Hull and Barnsley Railway
The Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company was opened on 20 July 1885. It had a total projected length of 66 miles but never reached Barnsley, stopping a few miles short at Stairfoot. The name was changed to The Hull and Barnsley Railway in 1905...
that circles the city, and by the construction of two major road bridges on Hessle
Hessle
Hessle is a town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, situated west of Kingston upon Hull city centre. Geographically it is part of a larger urban area which consists of the city of Kingston upon Hull, the town of Hessle and a number of other villages but is not part of the...
Road (1962) and Anlaby
Anlaby
Anlaby is a village located just west of Kingston upon Hull, and is in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is bordered by Anlaby Common , Willerby, Kirk Ella and Hessle. It lies to the east of the B1232 road and on the B1231 road...
Road (1964).
Telephone system
Telephone booth
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box or telephone box is a small structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience. In the USA, Canada and Australia, "telephone booth" is used, while in the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth it is a "telephone...
can be seen across the city. KC produces its own 'White Pages' telephone directory for Hull and the wider KC area. Colour Pages is KC's business directory, the counterpart to Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...
. The company was formed in 1902 as a municipal department by the City Council and is an early example of municipal enterprise. It remains the only locally operated telephone company in the UK, although it is now privatised. KCOM's Internet brands are Karoo Broadband (ISP serving Hull) and Eclipse (national ISP)
Initially Hull City Council retained a 44.9 per cent interest in the company and used the proceeds from the sale of shares to fund the city's sports venue, the KC Stadium
KC Stadium
The KC Stadium, often shortened to the KC, is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull , England. Conceived as early as the late 1990s, it was completed in 2002 at a cost of approximately £44 million. It is named after the stadium's sponsors, telecommunications provider KC,...
, among other things. On 24 May 2007 it sold its remaining stake in the company for over £107 million.
KC (Kingston Communications) was one of the first telecoms operators in Europe to offer ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
Asymmetric digital subscriber line is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. It does this by utilizing frequencies that are not used by a voice...
to business users, and the first in the world to run an interactive television service using ADSL, known as Kingston Interactive TV (KiT), which has since been discontinued due to financial problems. In the last decade, the KCOM Group has expanded beyond Hull and diversified its service portfolio to become a nationwide provider of telephone, television, and Internet access services, having close to 180,000 customers projected for 2007. After its ambitious programme of expansion, KCOM has struggled in recent years and now has partnerships with other telecommunications firms such as BT who are contracted to manage its national infrastructure. Telephone House, on Carr Lane, the firm's 1960s-built HQ, in stark modernist style, is a local landmark.
Public services
Policing in Kingston upon Hull is provided by Humberside PoliceHumberside Police
Humberside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing an area covering the East Riding of Yorkshire, the city of Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire...
. In October 2006 the force was named (jointly with Northamptonshire Police
Northamptonshire Police
Northamptonshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Northamptonshire in the East Midlands of England.The force area amounts to and has a resident population of 642,708...
) as the worst-performing police force in the United Kingdom, based on data released from the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
. However, after a year of "major improvements", the Home Office list released in October 2007 shows the force rising several places (although still among the bottom six of 43 forces rated). Humberside Police received ratings of "good" or "fair" in most categories.
HM Prison Hull
Hull (HM Prison)
HM Prison Hull is a Category B men's local prison. The term 'local' means that this prison holds people on remand to the local courts. Hull Prison located in Kingston upon Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England...
is located in the city and is operated by HM Prison Service. It caters for up to 1,000 Category B/C
Prison security categories in the United Kingdom
There are four prisoner security categories in the United Kingdom used to classify every adult prisoner for the purposes of assigning them to a prison. The categories are based upon the severity of the crime and the risk posed should the person escape....
adult male prisoners.
Statutory emergency fire and rescue service
Fire service in the United Kingdom
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales...
is provided by the Humberside Fire and Rescue Service
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the area of what was the county of Humberside , but now consists of the unitary authorities of East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire in northern England.-Fire...
, which has its headquarters near Hessle and five fire stations in Hull. This service was formed in 1974 following local government reorganisation from the amalgamation of the East Riding of Yorkshire County Fire Service, Grimsby Borough Fire and Rescue Service, Kingston Upon Hull City Fire Brigade and part of the Lincoln (Lindsey) Fire Brigade and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Fire and Rescue Service.
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
The Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust operates in the city of Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.It is based on three sites the Trust is one of the largest in England and provides acute care for a local population of 600,000 and over 1.2 million people for our tertiary...
provides healthcare from three sites, Hull Royal Infirmary
Hull Royal Infirmary
Hull Royal Infirmary is one of the two main hospitals for Kingston upon Hull . It is situated on Anlaby Road, just outside of the city centre, and is run by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust....
, Castle Hill Hospital
Castle Hill Hospital
Castle Hill Hospital is an NHS hospital to the west of Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, and is run by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.-History:...
and Princess Royal Hospital and there are several private hospitals including ones run by BUPA
Bupa
Bupa is a large British healthcare organisation, with bases on three continents and more than ten million customers in over 200 countries. It is a private healthcare company, in direct contrast to the UK's National Health Services, which are tax-funded healthcare systems and do not require private...
and Nuffield Hospitals. The Yorkshire Ambulance Service
Yorkshire Ambulance Service
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service is the NHS ambulance service covering most of Yorkshire in England. It covers the whole of the East Riding of Yorkshire , South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire along with the majority of the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
provides emergency patient transport. NHS primary health care services are provided by Hull NHS Primary Care Trust
NHS Primary Care Trust
An NHS primary care trust is a type of NHS trust, part of the National Health Service in England. PCTs commission primary, community and secondary care from providers. Until 31 may2011 they also provided community services directly. Collectively PCT are responsible for spending around 80% of the...
at several smaller clinics and general practitioner
General practitioner
A general practitioner is a medical practitioner who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes. They have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues and comorbidities...
surgeries. NHS Mental health services in Hull are provided by Humber NHS Foundation Trust. It runs a Memory Clinic in Coltman Street, west Hull designed to help older people with early onset dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
.
Waste management
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
is co-ordinated by the local authority. The Waste Recycling Group
Waste Recycling Group
Waste Recycling Group is a major British waste management company.WRG was owned by Guy Hands' investment company Terra Firma Capital Partners until September 2006, when it was sold to Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, S.A.The company offers services in Landfill Disposal, Energy Recovery,...
is a company which works in partnership with the Hull City and East Riding of Yorkshire councils to deal with the waste produced by residents. The company plans to build an energy from waste plant at Salt End
Salt End
Salt End or Saltend is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in an area known as Holderness. It is situated on the north bank of the Humber just outside the Hull eastern boundary on the A1033 road....
to deal with 240,000 tonnes of rubbish and put waste to a productive use by providing power for the equivalent of 20,000 houses. Hull's Distribution Network Operator
Distribution Network Operator
Distribution network operators are companies licensed to distribute electricity in Great Britain by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets....
for electricity is CE Electric UK
CE Electric UK
Northern Powergrid Holdings Company is an electrical distribution company based in Newcastle Upon Tyne in England...
(YEDL
Yorkshire Electricity
Yorkshire Electricity was an electricity distribution utility in the UK serving much of Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.-History:...
); there are no power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
s in the city. Yorkshire water manages Hull's drinking
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
and waste water. Drinking water is provided by boreholes and aquifers in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and it is abstracted from the River Hull at Tophill Low, near Hutton Cranswick. Should either supply experience difficulty meeting demand, water abstracted from the River Derwent
River Derwent, Yorkshire
The Derwent is a river in Yorkshire in the north of England. It is used for water abstraction, leisure and sporting activities and effluent disposal as well as being of significant importance as the site of several nature reserves...
at both Elvington
Elvington, City of York
Elvington is a village and civil parish situated approximately south-east of York, England, on the B1228 York-Howden road. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,212...
and Loftsome Bridge can be moved to Hull via the Yorkshire water grid. There are many reservoirs in the area for storage of potable and non-potable water. Waste water and sewage has to be transported in a wholly pumped system because of the flat nature of the terrain to a sewage
Sewage
Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...
treatment works at Salt End
Salt End
Salt End or Saltend is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in an area known as Holderness. It is situated on the north bank of the Humber just outside the Hull eastern boundary on the A1033 road....
. The treatment works is partly powered by both a wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
and a biogas CHP engine.
University of Hull
Kingston upon Hull is home to the University of HullUniversity of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
, which was founded in 1927 and received its Royal Charter in 1954. It now has a total student population of around 20,000 across its main campuses in Hull and Scarborough. The main University campus is in North Hull, on Cottingham Road. Notable alumni include former Deputy Prime Minister Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull (John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
), The Poet Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
, social scientist Lord Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29...
, Woman's Hour
Woman's Hour
Woman's Hour is a radio magazine programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom.-History:Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by Alan Ivimey the programme was first broadcast on 7 October 1946 on the BBC's Light Programme . It was transferred to its current home in 1973...
presenter and writer Jenni Murray
Jenni Murray
Dame Jennifer Susan "Jenni" Murray, DBE is a British journalist and broadcaster. She attended Barnsley Girls High School and has a degree in French and Drama from Hull University...
, and the dramatist Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
. Hull University is a partner in the new University Centre of the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education (GIFE) being built in Grimsby, North Lincolnshire.
Hull York Medical School
The Hull York Medical SchoolHull York Medical School
The Hull York Medical School , is a medical school in England which took its first intake of students in 2003. The school was opened as a part of the British Government's attempts to train more doctors, which also saw Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Peninsula Medical School and University of...
(HYMS) is a joint venture between the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
and the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
. It first admitted students in 2003 as a part of the British government's attempts to train more doctors.
University of Lincoln
The University of LincolnUniversity of Lincoln
The University of Lincoln is an English university founded in 1992, with origins tracing back to the foundation and association with the Hull School of Art 1861....
grew out of the University of Humberside, a former polytechnic
Polytechnic (United Kingdom)
A polytechnic was a type of tertiary education teaching institution in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became universities which meant they could award their own degrees. The comparable institutions in Scotland were...
based in Hull. In the 1990s the focus of the institution moved to nearby Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....
and the administrative headquarters and management moved in 2001. The University of Lincoln has retained a campus in George Street in Hull city centre whilst Hull University purchased the adjacent University of Lincoln campus site on Cottingham Road. Following government cuts to Higher Education funding, the George Street campus is due to close in 2013 with courses transferred to Lincoln.
Other institutions
The Hull School of ArtHull School of Art
The Hull School of Art was founded in 1861 by a group of 'working men' as a response to a British government circular. The circular was issued by the British Government's Department of Science and Art...
, founded in 1861, is regarded nationally and internationally for its excellence as a specialist creative centre for higher education.
The Northern Academy of Performing Arts and Northern Theatre School both provide education in musical theatre, performance and dance.
Schools and colleges
Hull has over 100 local schools; of these, Hull City Council supports 14 secondary and 71 primary schools. One of these, St Mary's Sports CollegeSt Mary's Sports College
St. Mary's Sports College is a mixed Roman Catholic secondary school and sixth form college in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was formed following an amalgamation between the former St Mary's RC girls High School and Marist College RC High School for boys...
, is a Roman Catholic secondary school.
Schools which are independent of the City Council include Hymers College
Hymers College
Hymers College is a co-educational independent school located on the site of the old Botanic Gardens of Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1893 as a boys' school, but expanded to include girls from the 1970s onwards.-History:...
and Hull Collegiate School
Hull Collegiate School
Hull Collegiate School commonly known in the area as Collegiate or Tranby Croft is an independent school for boys and girls aged 2.8 to 18.It was established, with the merger of Hull Grammar School and Hull High School, in September 2005.It is located in Anlaby, near Hull, in the East Riding of...
. The latter, which is run by the United Church Schools Trust, was formed by the merging of Hull Grammar School and Hull High School. There is a further education
Further education
Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...
college, Hull College
Hull College
Hull College is a further education College in Hull, England. The enrollment of around 28,000students makes it one of the largest schools of its type in the United Kingdom...
, and two large sixth form college
Sixth form college
A sixth form college is an educational institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belize, Hong Kong or Malta where students aged 16 to 18 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications, such as A-levels, or school-level qualifications such as GCSEs. In Singapore and India, this is...
s, Wyke College
Wyke College
Wyke College is a further education Sixth Form College in Hull, England.In October 2008 the £7 million Ash building was opened by Stephen Greep, chief executive of Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. The total investment in the project which will cover three new buildings is...
and Wilberforce College
Wilberforce College
Wilberforce College is a further education Sixth Form College in Hull, England.-External links:*...
. East Riding College
East Riding College
East Riding College is a further education college located in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was formed in March 2002, by the merger of Beverley College and East Yorkshire College, Bridlington.-Campuses and locations:...
operates a small adult education campus in the city, and Hull Trinity House School has been offering pre-sea training to prospective mariners since 1787.
There are only two single-sex schools in Hull: Trinity House, which teaches only boys, and Newland School For Girls
Newland School For Girls
Newland School For Girls, a "Mathematics and Computing College" is a single sex school situated in Kingston upon Hull. On 28 August 2007, the school celebrated its centenary. The School's unofficial song is "The City Of The Light", an old hymn which has been interpreted as an advanced metaphor for...
.
Schools ratings
The city has had a poor examination success rate for many years and is often at the bottom of government GCSE league tables.In the 2007 the city moved off the bottom of these tables for pupils who achieve five A* to C grades, including English and Maths, at General Certificate of Secondary Education
General Certificate of Secondary Education
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...
by just one place when it came 149th out of 150 local education authorities. However, the improvement rate of 4.1 per cent, from 25.9 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in summer 2007, was among the best in the country.
They returned to the bottom of the table in 2008 when 29.3 per cent achieved five A* to C grades which is well below the national average of 47.2 per cent.
Dialect and accent
The local accentAccent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
is quite distinctive and noticeably different from the rest of the East Riding; however it is still categorised among Yorkshire accent
Yorkshire dialect and accent
The Yorkshire dialect refers to the varieties of English used in the Northern England historic county of Yorkshire. Those varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke. The dialect has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse; it should not be confused with modern slang...
s. The most notable feature of the accent is the strong I-mutation
I-mutation
I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is fronted, and/or a front vowel is raised, if the following syllable contains /i/, /ī/ or /j/ I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or...
in words like goat, which is [ˈɡəʊt] in standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
and [ˈɡoːt] across most of Yorkshire, becomes [ˈɡɵːt] ("gert") in and around parts of Hull, although there is variation across areas and generations.
The vowel sound in words such as burnt, nurse, first is pronounced with an /ɛ/ sound, as is also heard in Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
and in areas of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
yet this sound is very uncommon in most of Yorkshire. The word pairs spur/spare and fur/fair illustrate this.
The generational and/or geographic variation can be heard in word pairs like pork/poke or cork/coke, or hall/hole, which some people pronounce identically (using the second of the two variations) while others make a distinction; anyone called "Paul" (for example) soon becomes aware of this (pall/pole).
Notable people
- Most of the notable people associated with the city can be found in the People from Kingston upon Hull and People associated with the University of Hull categories.
People from Hull are called "Hullensians" and the city has been the birthplace and home to many notable people. Among the most notable persons of historic significance with a connection to Hull are William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery
and Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson CBE, was a pioneering English aviator. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, Johnson set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s...
, aviator who was the first person to fly solo from England to Australia.
Notable entertainers from the city include actor John Alderton
John Alderton
John Alderton is an English actor who is best known for his roles in Upstairs, Downstairs, Thomas & Sarah and Please Sir!. Alderton has often starred alongside his wife, Pauline Collins.-Early life:...
and actress Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...
.
Playwrights Richard Bean
Richard Bean
Richard Bean, born in East Hull in 1956, is an English playwright.-Early years:Bean studied Social Psychology at Loughborough University of Science and Technology and graduated with a 2-1 BSc Hons, and went on to become an occupational psychologist, having previously worked in a bread plant for a...
, John Godber
John Godber
John Harry Godber is an English dramatist, known mainly for his observational comedies. In the 'Plays and Players Yearbook' for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. He has a wife and 2 children.-Biography:Godber was...
and Alan Plater have close connections with Hull.
Musicians include Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Paul David Heaton is an English singer-songwriter. He was a member of The Housemartins, who disbanded in 1988, and a member of The Beautiful South, who disbanded in 2007. He is currently pursuing a solo career....
of the Housemartins and The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South were an English alternative rock group formed at the end of the 1980s by two former members of Hull group The Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway. The duo were initially joined by Sean Welch , Dave Stead and Dave Rotheray , all of whom stayed with the group throughout...
and guitarist Mick Ronson
Mick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
who worked with David Bowie. The logician John Venn
John Venn
Donald A. Venn FRS , was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science....
hailed from Hull. The poet Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
lived in Hull for 30 years and wrote much of his mature work in the city.
Notable sportspeople include Clive Sullivan
Clive Sullivan
Clive A. Sullivan MBE was a Welsh rugby union and professional Rugby League World Cup winning footballer of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. A Great Britain and Wales international winger, he played with both Hull and Hull Kingston Rovers in his career, and also played for Oldham, and Doncaster...
, rugby league player, who played for both of Hull's professional rugby league teams and was the first black Briton to captain any national representative team. The main A63 road into the city from the Humber Bridge
Humber Bridge
The Humber Bridge, near Kingston upon Hull, England, is a 2,220 m single-span suspension bridge, which opened to traffic on 24 June 1981. It is the fifth-largest of its type in the world...
is named after him (Clive Sullivan Way). Another is Dean Windass
Dean Windass
Dean Windass is an English footballer, who predominantly played as a striker, and is known for his spells at Bradford City and his hometown team Hull City...
, who had two spells with Hull City and scored the goal which helped the club to promotion to the top flight of English football for the first time in the club's history. On accepting a peerage
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
, Welsh-born Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull (former MP and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
) took his title from his adopted home city of Hull.
Twinned cities
Town twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
arrangements with several places:
| Country | lace | ounty / District / Region / State | ate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sierra Leone Sierra Leone Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4... ! style="background:>#ccf; color: #000" ! | |
Freetown Freetown Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of... ! style="backgrou>d: #fff; color: #000" ! | |
Western Area Western Area, Sierra Leone The Western Area or Freetown Peninsula is one of four principal divisions of Sierra Leone. It comprises the oldest city and national capital Freetown and its surrounding suburbs. It covers an area of 557 km² and has a population of 947,122... |
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| ! style="background: #ccf; color: #000" ! > | Niigata Niigata, Niigata is the capital and the most populous city of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It lies on the northwest coast of Honshu, the largest island of Japan, and faces the Sea of Japan and Sado Island.... !>style="background: #fff; color: #000" ! | |
Niigata Niigata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Honshū on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The capital is the city of Niigata. The name "Niigata" literally means "new lagoon".- History :... |
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| ! style="background: #c>f; color: #000" ! | | Raleigh Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh... >/b> ! style="background: #fff; color: #000" ! |  |
North Carolina North Carolina North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte... |
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| Iceland Iceland Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population... ! style="background: #ccf> color: #000" ! |  |
Reykjavík Reykjavík Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay... ! style="backgro>nd: #fff; color: #000" ! | |
Reykjavík Constituencies of Iceland Iceland is divided into 6 constituencies for the purpose of selecting representatives to the Alþingi .-History:The current division was established by a 1999 constitution amendment and was an attempt to balance the weight of different districts of the country whereby voters in the rural districts... |
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| ! style="background: #ccf> color: #000" ! | | Rotterdam Rotterdam Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre... ! style="backgro>nd: #fff; color: #000" ! |  |
South Holland South Holland South Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is The Hague and its largest city is Rotterdam.South Holland is one of the most densely populated and industrialised areas in the world... |
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| ! style="background: #ccf; col>r: #000" ! | | Szczecin Szczecin Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427.... ! style="backgrou>d: #fff; color: #000" ! |  |
West Pomerania West Pomeranian Voivodeship West Pomeranian Voivodeship, , is a voivodeship in northwestern Poland. It borders on Pomeranian Voivodeship to the east, Greater Poland Voivodeship to the southeast, Lubusz Voivodeship to the south, the German federal-state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania to the west, and the Baltic Sea to the north... |
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| ! style="background: #ccf; >olor: #000" ! | | Launceston Launceston, Tasmania Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart... >/b> ! style="background: #fff; color: #000" ! |  |
Tasmania Tasmania Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart... |
Hull, Massachusetts
Hull, Massachusetts
Hull is a peninsula town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,293 at the 2010 census. Hull is the smallest town by land area in Plymouth County and the fourth smallest in the state...
, in the USA is named after this city, as is Hull, Quebec
Hull, Quebec
Hull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand...
, which is part of the Canadian national capital region.
See also
- Trams in Kingston upon Hull
- Trolleybuses in Kingston upon HullTrolleybuses in Kingston upon HullThe Kingston upon Hull trolleybus system once served the city of Kingston upon Hull , in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England...