Greatfield and Rooks

The empty part of Hull is slowly shrinking. Yesterday we had a longish session in Greatfield. It is an estate on the eastern-most part of Hull. It takes us a while to get there, especially on a Friday afternoon. I don't really get it, but for years now the roads in Hull on Friday afternoons have been clogged. One of the roads ends at the edge of the Eastern Cemetery, which is pretty big. We need to take a wander around it to get its full extent and mark the roads and chapel in it. We might be able to see Greatfield off with one more visit. It borders Preston Road which has a grim reputation in the city.

Today we had a change and set off out into East Yorkshire. The East of the county is a large, flat plain - made, incidently, from boulder clay deposited when the glaciers retreated last time [1]. It is known as Holderness. We took in some of the villages and country roads that mark the northern (ill-defined) border of Holderness with the gently rolling hills of the Yorkshire Wolds. We completed about seven small villages and hamlets.

The weather has been cool and wet so the grain harvest has been delayed, but today we saw lots of evidence of fields in various stages of harvest, including some ploughed, with a flock of rooks foraging for food. Actually I think it's a parliament of rooks ...


[1] Some people would say at the end of the last ice-age, but technically we are in an inter-glacial period of the current ice age. Climate change may change things, but we are in an unusually cold period of our planet's history - very rarely have there been icecaps at the poles, and sea levels are low because of all of the water tied up in ice especially in Antarctica.

Village and dereliction

We are slowly filling gaps in the East Riding. Wawne is a small village which is close to the outskirts of Hull. The river Hull separates it from the village of Thearne. On one side there is Ferry Lane and on the other Ferry Road, but no sign of the ferry.

We then crossed back into Hull and bit a small chunk out of the Bransholme estate. This was once Europe's largest housing estate. Some of it has been redeveloped even though much of it is only forty years old or less. I was surprised just how derelict many of the blocks of houses are. We got lots of pictures, but I've just included one

It will take a big effort to plough through the estate so I'll have a go and take breaks else where.

Bypassed

A warm, muggy afternoon and we headed towards Tickton. It's a bit of a back-water now. The A1035 was diverted past the village some time ago. It's a small place and close to the town of Beverley - too close to have many amenities of its own, but far enough away to be a nuisance. The village is not growing, indeed it may be running down: the Methodist church has been boarded up.

We then went on about six miles to Leven. Here too the village has been bypassed, but it's a much different place. There is a lot of new housing, even spreading out into farmland. There are shops and other facilities and the place seems to be thriving. I suspect that being a bit further from a town has helped to maintain the facilities.

We crossed the Leven canal so when we got home I traced the canal from the low-res Yahoo aeriel view. There's a path along the towpath, so someone might walk or bike it to get a better track and get the position of the locks that must manage the join to the river Hull.

I created a proposal for amenity=veterinary, mostly because the Vet's practice in our village needed a tag. The votes are all positive and the voting time is up, so later today I'll go through the approved-tag process. It is good to add a simple, useful tag.

More interest

I met Gary and Kirsty today. They collected a 19 inch monitor that I offered on Freecycle. I sent them a link to the OSM map so they could find our house and they liked the site. They live in a part of Hull called Longhill, which we haven't yet added to the map and they seem interested to have a go. I hope they do.

Moving to the suburbs?

I've been at home for a few days not feeling well. The Olympics in Beijing have kept me occupied much of the time, but I have looked at the map of the area. I noticed a slip-road missing in Hull - there was a GPS track, but they are easy to miss when slip-roads are close to the trunk road.

I've also been thinking about the areas on Hull and looking at the way other cities are rendered. I have ignored the districts of the city, but they have names and deserve to be added. I realised that people use the tag place=suburb to label districts in a city. It looks good, but if I'm being picky a suburb is a district on the outskirts of a city, not a district within it. I think we need place=district for the areas in cities, not suburb. It is probably pedantic but I might bring it up on the OSM-talk list.

Speaking of being a pedant: John Humphreys [BBC Radio 4 presenter] once told me that someone had described him as a pendant.

Beverley is complete

We've finally completed the last part of Beverley. We left the main pedestrian area until the end and went on a Monday morning so it wasn't too busy. It was a matter of joining up a lots of roads that lead towards the pedestrian zone. There were more little alleys and footways than I expected. On Saturdays there is a market in, what the rest of the week, is a car park. We know the roads around it as Saturday Market. There was one small, old sign with that on and no others. Some of the banks had their address outside the premises and they all quoted Market Place, Beverley. No street signs showed Market Place. Also in Saturday Market is the oddly named Market cross which more like a band stand.

Name that road

The saga of Beverley continues and now the end is in sight. We finished the housing estates and squeezed through some of the older parts of the town, there is just the town centre shopping areas to complete. We came across something that seems fairly rare: two name boards for the same street that differ from each other.

The top sign is fixed high on a wall and is typical of some of the older signs in the area. The lower sign faces the first across the street and, although looking tired, it is the more modern name board. I chose the first board to name the road on our map, but I may be wrong. I think I'll email the council and see what they have to say.

More of Beverley

Beverley is taking much longer than I thought it would. We have been working (again) on the southern estates and have made a lot of progress. These new estates are rather pleasant places, with lots of little footpaths and cycleways, some leading to much older footpaths. We've also mapped out the area around the nearby supermarket. I haven't seen the render yet so I need to check it.

I had to remove a small piece of highway=residential that someone had added around a small car park. I sent him a message so he knows what's going on.

I also had a message asking for help from Stephen O'Neill in Withernsea. He has just started out and needed a bit of help with JOSM, which I've tried to give. He contacted me because he had altered a bit of road that I added and it all went a bit wrong, mostly because he had tagged nodes rather than the ways. He is keen to map his local area which is good for me. I want to complete the East Riding and Hull (if anywhere can ever be complete) and the further flung parts like the East Coast are a long way to travel, so if Stephen does some of that it will help.

I hope that with one more visit I can finish Beverley - but it will probably be at least two.

Would you buy a house ...

We had a short visit to the south of Beverley. I realised that where some of the fairly new houses have been built was once a wet land area. The council, who choose the street names, have hinted at this with a couple of the names: Marsh Drive and Figham Springs Way.

Hull milestone

We've made a couple of short trips into Hull and included some mapping of the city centre. The city is now mapped (fairly well) from the river Hull westwards. Some parts of the east of the city are also mapped so I guess that more than 50% of the city is complete. Much of what is left is the usual slog of housing estates. It's the side of the city we know least, so I look forward to surprises and discoveries.