Well, this looks like it would have been ace. Our lost attractions correspondent reports on the museum that never was.
The destruction of the Royal Institution museum in Albion Street during a bombing raid is one of Hull’s best-known wartime stories. However the tale of another Hull museum which suffered an identical fate was, until recently, almost forgotten. Thanks to ground-breaking research by Kyle Thomason, an archivist at the Hull History Centre, new light has been shed on the Old Times Museum in High Street.
In a recent History Centre blog, Kyke reveals how the larger-than-life director of Hull Museums Thomas Sheppard spent most of his professional career collecting and storing items destined for his ninth and most ambitious museum – an enclosed re-creation of a historical street. Sheppard’s idea wasn’t just restricted to opening a new attraction for visitors. He wanted to showcase the work of local craftsmen employed to put it all together.
The museum was earmarked to occupy a four-storey former grain warehouse standing between Wilberforce House museum and the River Hull. Conversion work started in 1932 and concentrated on the first two floors of the warehouse. It featured the construction of a dozen shops and buildings running down the length of the warehouse and standing either side of a cobbled street.
Most of the exhibits featured fixtures or fittings rescued by Sheppard from original buildings before their demolition. A replica of an Old Town tavern, for example, was created using the frontage of the Talbot Hotel in Scale Lane with interior fittings from two other old pubs. A chemist’s shop was assembled with a front bay from a pharmacy in Hertfordshire, a pair of ornamental gold serpents from the doorway at an old chemist’s in Howden and decorative panelling from another chemist’s which once stood at the junction of Spring Bank and Beverley Road.
Virtually an entire blacksmith’s workshop was relocated from Holderness Road while a plumber’s shop featuring re-constructed parts of the salvaged frontage of the former King’s Head Inn in High Street also housed a collection of huge elm trunks originally used as pipes to carry fresh water to Hull from outlying areas. There was even an undertaker’s complete with an elaborately-carved Gothic hearse originally owned by the Annison’s funeral parlour.
A variety of historic vehicles were placed along the central street, including an 18th century stagecoach, an 1840 horse-drawn fire engine and an early motor car. The street itself was lit by whale oil lamps that once illuminated Queen’s Dock and also featured gallows and punishment stocks.
An opening date was pencilled in for March 1939 with plans in place for staff to wear period costume and serve beer from the re-created inns while a real blacksmith would be on hand to demonstrate his skills. However, for reasons which remain unclear, the necessary approval to open the museum to the public from Hull Corporation’s property and bridges committee was delayed.
The start of the Second World War later that year put things on hold indefinitely and on the night of 8 May 1941 the Old Times Museum was destroyed in a huge fireball sparked by intensive German bombing. Having seen his grand vision go up in flames without ever opening, Sheppard retired later that year. Only a few exhibits were recovered from the smouldering ruins.
The bombed site was eventually cleared and replaced with an ornamental garden in 1950 which is still there today.