Jade Wreathall, of HU7 HIve, gets on her bike to report from the Bransholme-based cycle experts.

Matt from the Central Library Makerspace was dying to show off his knowledge of racing cars. So we let him.

Is yet another significant heritage building in Hull under threat of demolition? Our Victorian schoolhouse correspondent Angus Young reports.

Opened in 1897 and standing at the junction with Fountain Road, the former Northumberland Avenue Board School is a reminder of the days when it was the focal point of a thriving residential area. Designed by local architect John Bilson, the sturdy red brick building initially welcomed 270 junior age boys, 270 girls and 273 infants. Seven years later an additional junior school annex was built and increased the total number of pupils to 1,100.

For half a century it served a large working-class population in Sculcoates living in a maze of terraced housing flanking Barmston Drain. The vast majority worked in the many surrounding heavy industries, including the numerous mills operating along the nearby River Hull.

After the Second World War the school’s use changed when it started to cater for children with learning difficulties while retaining a nursery for local pre-school youngsters. Later it came under the wing of Humberside County Council only to transfer to Hull City Council in 1996 when the county authority was abolished. By then, the back-to-back terraced housing had long vanished along with much of the original heavy industry.

Today the old school building once again faces an uncertain future having been used as a base by the Humber Archaeological Partnership for the last three decades. The Partnership was set up jointly by the Hull and East Riding councils following the demise of Humberside but it is now being dissolved with the service being switched to be run in-house by the East Riding.

That means the building in Northumberland Avenue will soon be empty. As a recent city council report dryly noted: “The dissolution will release an asset for repurposing or disposal”

The most obvious option would be a takeover by the Rise Academy, which currently occupies the neighbouring 1904 annex – the first school building to be designed by the city council after it took over responsibility for education from the Hull School Board. An alternative idea could be a residential conversion in a similar style to that seen at the former Newland Primary School in Newland Avenue. Bringing back people to live in an area once very much a community of its own would be a nice idea.

Whatever happens, the landmark is worth a look if you happen to enjoy the fast-disappearing splendour of late Victorian educational architecture. There are also a number of fascinating photographs displayed on the old school walls showing how the immediate neighbourhood looked back in the day.

One features an atmospheric image of a Peace Party held in Northumberland Avenue to mark the end of the First World War in 1918. It includes a large group of mainly children gathered around some benches presumably brought out of the school to be used for the street party. Visible over the school wall is the roofline of the neighbouring Northumberland Court almshouses while you can also just see part of a railway bridge on the former Hull and Barnsley Railway Company line in the distance.

Another photograph displayed on the opposite side of the street was taken around 1966 from the almshouses looking south along Northumberland Avenue. It clearly shows some of the terraced housing which would later be acquired under compulsory purchase and demolished as well as a grassy area in the foreground where four houses were destroyed during a Second World War bombing raid.

If you get the chance, the almshouses complex is also worth a visit. A Grade II listed building, the almshouses and their  distinctive clock tower were opened in 1887 and originally contained 101 bedsits.  Laid out around an open courtyard with extensive landscape gardens, the greenery of the site was designed to provide some natural relief to the back-to-back housing and smoking industrial chimney stacks.

Today it features 56 modernised flats and is operated as a sheltered housing scheme by Hull United Charities.

Angus Young

Design journalist and founder of Concrete Communities Leanne Cloudsdale picks an unusual piece of art for very personal reasons.

Nina works for Ideal Heating in Hull as a maintenance technician so she would seem perfectly placed to tell us what that is.

It’s a fair question, as no-one’s seen it for yonks. So we sent Hull Tour Guide Paul Schofield to get details.

Altogether now ‘Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber…’ Our bedtime poetry correspondent Angus Young explores a favourite radio rhythm.

As many of its devoted fans already know, you don’t have to own a boat to enjoy The Shipping Forecast. Four times a day weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles are broadcast by BBC 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for the next 24 hours.

Produced by the Met Office, they cover a vast stretch of water divided into 31 areas including our very own Humber. Each broadcast features updated details of gale warnings currently in force, a general weather synopsis and specific sea area forecasts containing wind direction and force, weather and visibility.

The Humber weather area in The Shipping Forecast is very different from the estuary which flows into it. The grid-like map of all the areas show most of them as squares or oblongs and Humber is no different. As such, Humber’s coastal boundary stretches from just north of Flamborough Head to Horsey on the north-east corner of Norfolk. From this coastline it extends out into the North Sea and almost reaches the Netherlands.

It is officially listed as the Forecast’s 16th sea area and as each forecast follows the same order going clockwise around the British Isles, Humber is traditionally a midway point in the broadcast. This rigidly-applied chronology also typically means it’s sandwiched in between the Tyne and Dogger to the north, German Bight to the east and Thames and Dover to the south when areas are grouped together in the forecast. Because of variations in the weather, it’s rare to hear more than three areas named together.

Aficionados of the programme reckon six areas included in the same forecast is a show-stopping moment. A typical six-hander would read something like this: “Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber – West or south-west 7 to severe gale 9, occasionally storm 10 at first, except in Tyne and Humber. Very rough or high, but rough in Forth and Tyne. Squally showers.Good, occasionally poor.”

Jane Russell sailed the length of the Humber sea area recently and recorded her voyage for the Yachting Monthly magazine. She said: “The Humber sea area incorporates the interesting but more challenging coastlines of The Wash and North Norfolk as well as the Humber estuary itself. From the area’s northern boundary near Flamborough Head all the way to Norfolk, tidal  flows become much more significant. The sea area is completely ruled by the currents that swirl around the between the banks and shoals that are the characteristic on this section of the East Coast. The extensive shoals are an extensive breeding ground for windfarms which, depending on your perspective, can either confuse or clarify navigation.”

Last year’s 125th anniversary of the first spoken word BBC radio broadcast of the Forecast was marked by a series of special programmes celebrating what has become a British institution, having originally been established in 1861 as a warning service to shipping using telegraph communications and later radio transmission via the Met Office.

Today many land-dwelling listeners tune in just for its rhythmic poetic quality rather than any precise information about weather conditions at sea, delighting in the precise but reassuring terminology and the roll-call of distant, storm-lashed sea areas. As Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, puts it: “It’s a poetic reverie and a symbol of national caring, whilst at the same time a reminder of our geographical isolation and the uncontrollable power of natural phenomena.”

Angus Young

We now go live (not really) to Hull’s Central Library, where our Ally-mai has the runners and riders.

Author Jason Beresford’s latest book is set in Egypt so, at a recent Mini-Malarkey and he told us all about the land of Pharaohs.

Our podcast goes mobile as our intrepid team head on a journey through Hull to discuss what’s happening and what may be happening next.