A tale of two villages

On the south side of Hull there used to be a glorious piece of waste ground, right against the Humber bank. At one time it had been a dock, but it was long abandoned and it was very overgrown. There was wildlife here in abundance, butterflies, moths, weasels, stoats and loads of birds. The river Humber is a magnet for migrating birds and this bit of waste ground was a good place to see some of them very close to the city centre and close to where I worked. That was was twenty years ago and now it has been developed into the Victoria Dock Village. I can't think of any where less like an English village, but still it is popular and this week we added it to the map. I have sketched in a footpath that I know runs along the riverbank, but I haven't walked it yet with a GPS to get an accurate track. I think the riverbank is a bit out so it would tidy that up too. Map

Today we took a look at Sutton. This is rather incongruous as it was a village on the outskirts of Hull but it has been subsumed into the city fairly quickly and yet retains the feel of a pleasant village, something the developers of places like Victoria Dock would probably give good money to know how to emulate. Map

Mapping Sutton has helped to improve the track of the national cycle network route 65 which passes through Sutton on its way to Hornsea. It follows an abandoned railway line which I traced originally from the low-res Yahoo photos and I've been slowly improving it. I also need to improve the Hornsea end too.