Neptune Street

The only Old bit of Neptune Street we could find

I like it when Hull sister needs someone to accompany her to a hospital appointment . She always wants to be there in good time and we invariably have time for some positive exploring  before I get one of the very two hourly trains back home. This time we were finished  by 09.15 , we had a leisurely coffee and decided as we were so near Albert Dock we would have a stroll to find the beautifully named Neptune Street . 

In a former post  I described the day I went looking for Rose Downs and Thompsons . I had in my mind that it was where my grandfather Benjamin John Elder Bruce had served his apprenticeship in 1894 to 7. I imagined him walking to work from Stoneferry as a young man .

My mistake surfaced when back home, I realised  it was Amos and Smith not Rose, Downs and Thompsons. I found Neptune Street , the address on the indenture document on Google Maps , and I am now untangling my mess.

So sister and I passed the end of Hessle Road and under the Clive Sullivan Way underpass, by Smith and Nephews , formerly in Neptune Street , which Google Maps soon found for us. Here in heartland industrial Kingston upon Hull , once the throbbing riverside gateway to the Baltic via Wilsons  , the fishing grounds and the nearby homes of all the decky-learners  we couldn't find any trace of Amos and Smith .We did find some old walls and an empty  Victorian redbrick possibility . Hull sister and I wandered as far as we dared , the street framed on one side by Albert Dock side, behind a no-go Barrier with a man in a hut , and an embankment which promised dock water on the other side , and a derelict shuttered 70s factory on the other we knew we could go no further . Sister and I were glad when a lady in a car leaving the only industrial unit around  drew up and asked us if we were lost , 

"no "we said "but tired "

and she ran us all the way back to the City Centre when we explained we were looking for Amos and Smith which closed in 1961 . 

I've discovered that the Victorian building was the remains of the Goods Yard bringing coal to Albert Dock on the Hull and Barnsley Railway , to the Neptune Street Depot. From 1968 it had been the site of Drapers , responsible for  desolation and destruction as steam locomotives were dismantled for scrap . Of Amos and Smith we then had found NOTHING . I can't even find any pictures in Google images. A visit to the Hull History Centre would suffice, but my mind has moved on .

I've just found all Grandpas ships papers, for the Apprentice went on to be a Ships Engineer , sailing out of Albert Dock with the Wilson Line on the Baltic run and 4 times to the USA . He started on the Toledo , built in Hull in 1881 and ignobly scrapped in 1908 all 1900 tons of her .