Where Is The Highest Spot In Hull?

Our regional summit correspondent Angus Young went in search of a peak and accidentally discovered a secret sect.

There’s a very good reason why you don’t find many shops in Hull selling mountaineering gear or skiing equipment. That’s because the city is generally as flat as the proverbial pancake. With most of Hull only two to four metres above sea level, we’re not exactly talking nosebleed territory here. Compare and contrast with Ben Nevis in Scotland. The UK’s highest mountain is an  impressively lofty 1,345 metres.

So just how naturally high can you get on foot in Hull without cheating by taking a lift up to the top floor of Hull Royal Infirmary, the city’s tallest building at  57 metres? The answer lies close to the 16th tee at Sutton Golf Club.

Installed in 1946, an odd-looking small stone pillar stands in a patch of woodland. It has nothing to do with golf but everything to do with an effort started before the Second World War to improve the accuracy of maps across Great Britain. The project was designed by the Ordnance Survey to unify the mapping of the country by merging and updating old local county-based systems into an improved national one.

It involved the installation of permanent marker stones recording a range of measurements at each site, including latitude, longitude and the height above sea level. Information about each location was also included on the stone itself. Known as triangulation, the system created precise geographical coordinates to be used as fixed points in ground-based surveying work required for mapping.

The roll-out of marker stones – known as triangulation or trig points – was completed in 1962, creating the Ordnance Survey National Grid which continued to be used for the next two decades when satellite-based global positioning systems took over.

These days, the old trig points are the subject of fascination among a group of people who call themselves Trig Hunters. They might or might not wear anoraks. As you might expect, they gather together on an online forum to swap stories about their attempts to find and log remote and half-forgotten trig points. (There’s a link to this cult in the supplementals below – Ed.)

Officially known as East Mount, the Sutton Golf Club pillar has its own station number (TA12/T23) and the various trig hunters who have visited the site and ticked it off their bucket list rate it as being in good condition.

As for the all-important height measurement, it stands a towering 11.2 metres above sea level. I’m told staff at the gold club are quite proud of their trig point and happily direct people in its general direction should they wish to see it up close. If you’re planning a visit, don’t forget to pack your altitude sickness tablets.

Angus Young

What’s It Like To Swim Across The Humber?

Plunging pelagic pensioner Julian Wild recounts to our outdoor swimming correspondent Angus Young the joys and perils of an estuarine dip.

Julian Wild, wild swimming the Humber. (Pic by Eleanor Wild)

It’s big, brown and not exactly the first place that springs to mind if you fancy a paddle. But that didn’t stop Julian Wild doing what few people have managed to do – swim across the Humber estuary.

We asked the intrepid long-distance swimmer why he decided to take the plunge. “Every time I drive across the Humber Bridge, I have the annoying habit of saying to my passenger: ‘Do you know that I’ve swam across there?” My family always heave a long sigh, but it was one of the best things I have done in my life and I am proud to have completed it.

“This adventure started with my normal early morning swim at Albert Avenue Baths in Hull in 2013 when I was 60 years old. I had only been swimming regularly for about 10 years and had taught myself to swim freestyle. One day a fellow swimmer told me how he had swum the Humber the year before with well-known local physiotherapist and health club owner, Keith Warner. I was at the stage of entering for longer distance swims and swimming the Humber seemed like a great challenge.

“I contacted Keith and he agreed to include me in his next charity swim in support of the Humber Rescue on condition that I got to the required level of fitness so that I could keep up with the other eleven swimmers. He insisted that we train at Total Fitness and then in the North Sea at Mappleton, where the waves are almost as dangerous as the unexploded ordnance on the beach.

“Finally, the day came at the end of June when we congregated on the north bank of the Humber by the Humber Rescue station beneath the tower of the Humber Bridge. The River Humber is said to be the second most dangerous navigable waterway after the Orinoco. The current is so strong that anyone venturing into the river could be swept away to the North Sea. It is also a sludgy brown colour, not the clear blue water of a tropical sea. It was made clear that if any of us could not keep up with the others we would be taken out of the water by the accompanying Humber Rescue. I was the second oldest swimmer, so this warning was probably aimed at me.

“We were taken by one of the Humber Rescue lifeboats across to the Lincolnshire side of the river, close to the Waters’ Edge Country Park. The plan was to set off and swim with the current back up the river towards North Ferriby and then to tread water until the tide turned in our favour. The conditions were reasonably calm but it was still a test to do the crawl with your face in thick brown water where you could not see a thing.

“We had to swim almost as far as the riverside walkway at North Ferriby, gradually easing our way across until the current was with us and allowed us to swim more easily back to our assembly point underneath the bridge. In total we swam 4.2 miles in a time of one hour 48 minutes.

“Getting out of the river onto sharp rocks at Hessle with legs like jelly was the hardest part of the journey, but we all managed it and it made for a very memorable day, witnessed by friends and family. My wife and youngest son managed to get a place in one of the Humber Rescue boats, so they would have been close at hand if it had not ended well.

“Inspired by the Humber swim, I went on to complete most of the long distance swims in the UK and to do the world’s oldest swim from Europe to Asia across the Dardanelles. I am pleased to say that, at 72, I am still swimming every day but my marathon swims are over. Nevertheless, swimming the Humber will live long in the memory.”

Angus Young