The Hull Area

The area covered by this book is depicted in the map below, as featured in the book. However, below this is an interactive google map containing more information. The ‘Hull area’ as dealt with here broadly falls within an arc drawn from the Humber Bridge in the west, up around Skidby and Dunswell over to Wawne and Swine, then down past Bilton and Hedon and ending at Paull. This area consists of the city of Hull and the nearby villages in adjoining parts of the East Riding, as well as the middle stretch of the Humber estuary. The map shows that much of the open space between Hull and the villages is farmland, mainly arable, but there are also many patches of mown and rough grassland, pasture and other unploughed land. Several significant pockets of open land can be found within Hull itself, particularly the parks. Besides the mighty Humber, the main waterways are the River Hull and the Holderness and Barmston Drains that run north to south through the area. There is little in the way of stillwaters, the main bodies being East Park lake, the Bransholme Sewage Works reservoir and the eastern docks. Woodland is also at a premium, with most of the mature trees being found to the west of the area. Being a floodplain and former saltmarsh, virtually all of the Hull area is low lying and flat. Only in the extreme west, where the silts and clays give way to to the chalk foothills of the Wolds, does the ground begin to rise and undulate.