The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
colours we saw at Patrington.
In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull,
founded by Edward I at the close of the thirteenth century.
It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the
Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
practically all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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