Photo credit: www.paul-gibson.com
You can find more fantastic photos of Hull on his website
If you’d visited this area in the mid part of the 19th century you would have witnessed a purely rural scene, very different from the urban streets that fill the area now. The small hamlet of Newland itself lay along what is now Cottingham Road; one of the most common occupations listed for the area was ‘cow keeper’.
It was separated from Hull itself by nothing more than an unmade dirt track, first known as Newland Tofts Lane and locally as ‘Mucky Peg’ lane - because of how filthy your legs could get walking down it. Rev Lewis Wilson Heath (vicar of Newland 1874 - 81) would regularly get his carriage stuck in the mud when visiting parishioners.
The term ‘Newland’ refers to an area reclaimed from the ‘wastes’ - boggy marshland unsuitable for farming or habitation.
“In the village of Newland in the eastern part of the parish, there is a great extent of pasture and meadow land, from which Hull is
supplied with Milk and butter” - Baines 1823 directory
With the rapid expansion of the City of Hull in later half of the 1800’s, Newland’s days as a sleepy rural parish were soon to be over. It was becoming more suburban and was included as part of Hull with the boundary extensions of 1882. In the 1860’s the population doubled from 725 to 1,684 and in the following decade doubled again to 3,214.
“At Newland there was a fine row of 50ft wild Cherry trees - a glorious sight in April…the nightingale often sang here…there used to
be lots of wild daffodils and fields of oxeyes up to Inglemire Lane. Many very old willows used to grow…right down to North Tofts
lane corner” - G. H. Hill, The Township of Newland.
New houses were first developed on the east side of the avenue starting in 1871, an area known to the Victorians as ‘St. Johns Wood’. This development was completed by 1881.
These houses were built for local artisans - plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters - skilled but ordinary folk who contrasted with the more well-to-do merchants, bankers and sea captains of the also recently completed ‘Avenues’, off the southern part of Newland Tofts Lane, now known as Princes Avenue.
With all of this came industry and apparently a particular odour the area was famous for:
“Who does not remember the lovely aroma that spread like a blanket over north hull now and again, generally denominated as the Newland smell?” - Quote from ‘Streets of Hull’ by Len Markham.
Housing on west side of Newland Avenue was begun later in the 1890’s starting with Sharp Street. In 1903 an electric tram service opened travelling up Queens road via Newland Avenue to Cottingham Road, connecting the area with the rest of the city.
In 1885 only 23 people are listed on the avenue, by 1939 it stands at well over 200 with multiple ‘fruiterers butchers and confectioners’ and even one ‘tripe dealer’ operating from a terraced house, to provide for the new population.
It was separated from Hull itself by nothing more than an unmade dirt track, first known as Newland Tofts Lane and locally as ‘Mucky Peg’ lane - because of how filthy your legs could get walking down it. Rev Lewis Wilson Heath (vicar of Newland 1874 - 81) would regularly get his carriage stuck in the mud when visiting parishioners.
The term ‘Newland’ refers to an area reclaimed from the ‘wastes’ - boggy marshland unsuitable for farming or habitation.
“In the village of Newland in the eastern part of the parish, there is a great extent of pasture and meadow land, from which Hull is
supplied with Milk and butter” - Baines 1823 directory
With the rapid expansion of the City of Hull in later half of the 1800’s, Newland’s days as a sleepy rural parish were soon to be over. It was becoming more suburban and was included as part of Hull with the boundary extensions of 1882. In the 1860’s the population doubled from 725 to 1,684 and in the following decade doubled again to 3,214.
“At Newland there was a fine row of 50ft wild Cherry trees - a glorious sight in April…the nightingale often sang here…there used to
be lots of wild daffodils and fields of oxeyes up to Inglemire Lane. Many very old willows used to grow…right down to North Tofts
lane corner” - G. H. Hill, The Township of Newland.
New houses were first developed on the east side of the avenue starting in 1871, an area known to the Victorians as ‘St. Johns Wood’. This development was completed by 1881.
These houses were built for local artisans - plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters - skilled but ordinary folk who contrasted with the more well-to-do merchants, bankers and sea captains of the also recently completed ‘Avenues’, off the southern part of Newland Tofts Lane, now known as Princes Avenue.
With all of this came industry and apparently a particular odour the area was famous for:
“Who does not remember the lovely aroma that spread like a blanket over north hull now and again, generally denominated as the Newland smell?” - Quote from ‘Streets of Hull’ by Len Markham.
Housing on west side of Newland Avenue was begun later in the 1890’s starting with Sharp Street. In 1903 an electric tram service opened travelling up Queens road via Newland Avenue to Cottingham Road, connecting the area with the rest of the city.
In 1885 only 23 people are listed on the avenue, by 1939 it stands at well over 200 with multiple ‘fruiterers butchers and confectioners’ and even one ‘tripe dealer’ operating from a terraced house, to provide for the new population.