LIME STREET

1732-1841 THORNTON, WATSON & Co
Click for Picture of Old Sugarhouse.

TRIPPET

1658-<1673 SMITH William & CATLIN William

WINCOLMLEE

1740s-70s DELAMOTTE, BEEL & Co
1770s-90 BINE Francis
1790-8 BASSANO, CARLILL & Co (inc BOYES & LEVETT)
1818 BASSANO & LEVETT

CHURCH STREET

1798?-1817 BOYES, G F & Co

SOUTH END

17th century - at similar time to Trippet sugarhouse

HULL CLICK the for sugar houses in that street, and on for an image. (For local directory of sugar houses, click here.) (For national directory of sugar houses, click here.)           The width of this map represents 1ml / 1.6km.
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2007, April ... My first visit to Lime Street last year (2006) simply told me that there was nothing obvious still existing of the Old Sugar House complex. I returned this April armed with picture, maps, camera, etc to have a further look. Originally, Lime Street was very narrow at its southern end, with a sharp bend turning it to the Sugar House Bridge over the Sutton Drain. It would appear that with the collapse of the sugarhouse the opportunity was taken to redirect the line of the road to that of today. A late Victorian map confirms this and shows the bridge named simply as Lime Street Bridge ... this bridge disappeared when the new North Bridge across the River Hull was built in 1931, on the line of the Sutton Drain. There are a number of newspaper reports of the collapse and of the inquest into the 8 deaths. The plan above is my interpretation of the layout, using those reports along with the ILN picture, the before & after maps and, of course, the site today. Before going into this detail, I had thought that the ILN picture showed Lime Street in the foreground fronting the R. Hull, but that cannot have been so. The reports say the building faced south and that the north-west corner and the north wall remained standing (perilously!) after the collapse, just as the picture shows, the foreground being the open ground fronting the Sutton Drain. The front of the building collapsed onto this open ground, and so it was half the 8 or 9 storey 74ft high gable end that crashed into the narrowness of Lime Street as well as tons of seed (most floors had been filled to within a foot of their ceilings) filling it with debris to 20ft deep. The inquest reports quote workmen in the "receptacle" - the horse-powered winch for lifting the bags/barrels to the upper storeys - which can be seen on the plan projecting midway along the front of the building, and on the ILN picture as a top-to-bottom open shaft where its front wall had fallen away. The site today, bearing in mind that Lime Street cuts diagonally through the footprint of the main refinery building, is occupied on both sides of the street by Allam Marine Ltd.(below - top) Two buildings standing to the east of the street, matching those marked * on the plan, though more recent than the original sugarhouse, may well be early Victorian and part of the later sugarhouse complex.(below - middle) At the front of one of these buildings is a small yard enclosed on 2 sides by a cement-rendered 8ft wall. Age and vehicle-abuse have caused the render to fall from parts of this wall revealing thin soft red bricks, some less than 2" thick, probably contemporary with the original sugarhouse. I wonder if this is the flue from the clerks' office, which backed on to the dwelling house.(below - group) This may well be all there is to show for a sugarhouse that refined for more than 100yrs, but when the site becomes vacant again it would be good to think that a more detailed and professional study could be undertaken, and when the site is eventually redeveloped perhaps the names of buildings, streets, etc might reflect its previous use. images above - © bryan mawer 2007.   So, if you walk across North Bridge, turn left and walk along Lime Street for about 35-45 paces, STOP and you are in the old sugarhouse. Close your eyes and imagine the working conditions !!   2008, June ... Another of my regular visits to the site. Allam Marine are continuing to use the buildings and riverside land to the west of Lime Street, however the expanse of land to the east of Lime Street across to New Cleveland Street has been cleared. With Allam Marine setting up in Melton (to the west of Hull and close to the A63), the Lime Street buildings are to be let and I've heard that the land to the east is to be a car park. With the land cleared it is easy to see evidence of old buildings, cellars, etc ... there must be foundations and much evidence below the surface, but just how far back they would go is questionable.     images above - © bryan mawer 2008. I've attempted to show how the old sugar house might have looked back in the early-mid 1800s ... a huge building, with the Sutton Drain running in front.(upper left) The line of the drain can be seen today running across the southeast corner of the site and fixed by the Victorian(?) bridge parapets that still exist on either side of New Cleveland Street, pointing the Drain directly at the new North Bridge.(lower left) I hope a professional study of the site will take place, at least to make an assessment of its archaeological worth, before the diggers move in !!   2011, Jan ... Allam Marine have completed their move. Their northern-most buildings and the riverbank yard are being used by others, but the southern-most buildings, and the open ground east of Lime St (sugarhouse site), now stand empty. The remaining brick buildings on the open ground have been demolished and, I'm told, the large piles of bricks await crushing, then to be graded across the site as the base for a tarmac car park. We have to hope this will not damage, but preserve, any archaeology beneath that may be investigated when the site is eventually built on. In the meantime, perhaps it could be named "Sugarhouse Car Park" !!   2011, Apr ... My visit was timed to coincide with the digging of a deep trench within the site into which large drainage pipes were being laid. It gave me glimpses of what may have been old walls and foundations, and indeed conversations confirmed that walls of various ages and complexity had been cut through and that there had been the odd 'find'.   2011, Jul ...   © bryan mawer 2011. So there it is, the car park on the sugarhouse ... a pristine tarmac roof covering all that is beneath. We await the signage and the customers, and then the economic upturn that will make building on this site profitable so that we can at last see if anything remains of a very successful sugar refining business.   2012, Jun ...   © bryan mawer 2012.   2013, Oct ... The Sugarhouse Car Park is not yet in use. It seems there'd have been ample time for the archaeologists !!   2014, Jan ... North Bridge Car Park is now open ...     © bryan mawer 2014.   ... with almost 200 spaces to choose from, but when you park please remember that ...   marks the spot where hundreds of men refined sugar for more than a century, where scores of men stored linseed for a couple of decades ... and where seven men, and a boy passing by, were killed when half the building collapsed.     This is not just a car park, it's an important part of Hull's industrial history.     **************************************   ANOTHER SUGARHOUSE ...   I have often wondered why it has been reported that the Lime St sugarhouse "failed almost immediately"(1), when its progress is well documented for some 110 years ... I'm sure the Thornton family would not have continued to pour money into a failed business for all those years. Another sugarhouse - no exact location, no exact owners' names - was actually built in 1740 on "the growths" in Sculcoates on the west bank of the River Hull.(2) Within just 6 months, this sugarhouse had caused much concern, not because of its effect upon other businesses but because of its effect upon the river itself. "The growths" was part of the river's flood plain, well below the level of the river and far from suitable for the construction of a 56ft x 34ft multistorey building. Every high tide was above the building, spring tides some 20ft above, and extraordinary spring tides saw water 10ft deep around it. The ground was ouzy and 'great piles' had to be driven deep into the ground to secure the foundations. Of even greater concern was the way in which the building affected the flow of the river. The building itself, and the moored vessels loading and unloading against it, forced the current over to the opposite bank, already damaging it and making it liable for expensive repair. Thomas Denison's Opinion on the River, 1 Nov 1740(3), severely criticised the jury that allowed the building, saying that even then they would not see their fault, nor see the nuisance. Why he does not name the owners, I don't know ... he simply gives us - "Owned by and erected by R_____d T_____n & F_____s P_____e and Partners, merchants". This sugarhouse seemed doomed, and I now wonder if there has been confusion between this and the Lime St sugarhouse ... especially if the T_____n was Thornton, however there's a suggestion it might be Thompson & Pease(4). In 1774, Elizabeth Thompson married. Settlement was made on 20 Aug and part of it reads, "... All that moiety or second part of messuage tenement dwelling house garden sugarhouse warehouse outhouses staithes jetties grounds lands and hereditements belonging in Sculcoates appertaining in tenure or occupation of Charles Delamotte & Joseph Thompson now in occupation of John Coleman & Co ..."(5). The same sugarhouse or another sugarhouse ?? 1. 'A History of Kingston upon Hull' by Hugh Calvert, Phillimore, p.205. 2. East Riding Archive Office CSR/20/107. 3. East Riding Archive Office CSR/18/8. 4. The Trade & Shipping of 18C Hull by Gordon Jackson, EYLHS 1975. 5. Hull History Centre U DDCV/x2/31/4.   **************************************   WINCOLMLEE ...   It was the sugarhouse on Wincolmlee (which I feel sure cannot have been the one above) that was the competition to Thornton & Watson. Gordon Jackson wrote in 1972 in his "Hull in the 18th Century" ... "Charles Delamotte, son of a London sugar refiner, was sent up to Hull when he returned from his journey with John Wesley to Georgia. He built the New Sugar House in Wincomblee, and was in business from the forties to the seventies, for part of the time in partnership as Delamotte, Beel & Company. Delamotte made - or inherited - enough money to forsake the world of business for the tranquility of Lincolnshire, spending the last thirty years of his life in retirement in Barrow-upon-Humber. Delamotte's place was taken in Hull by Francis Bine, master mariner and whaler owner who, it was said, made £20,000 out of the American war, and 'commenced Merchant and Sugar Boiler having bought the New Sugar House on Wincomblee'. He occupied the House for perhaps twenty years, having a turnover, in his bank account for 1785, of a little over £26,000. Some time around 1790 he or his executors sold the House to 'John Bassano, John Carlill, John Boyes and John Levett of Hull Sugar Bakers'; or, to be more accurate, they bought it by running up a huge overdraft with Smiths & Thompson's Bank. Their premises were insured for £15,000 until August 1797, when the total was raised to £20,000". Source : "Hull in the Eighteenth Century" by Gordon Jackson, OUP, 1972. [Parish Registers show that Francis Bine was buried at Kirk Ella on 15 Oct 1787.]

 

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