A Fishy Smelling Place

A Fishy Smelling Place

A Fishy Smelling Place (Tower and Pump House, St Andrew’s Dock, Hull) oil on canvas, 76cm x 101 cm

At the site of the former "Fish Docks" in Hull, St Andrew's Dock, is the old tower and pumphouse which worked the locks. Although a listed building, it has fallen into disrepair, and trees grow up through its roof. Graffiti adorns its walls, spelling out "Hippy" in large letters with an exclamation mark. I went there on a late summer afternoon and caught the dying sun. That seemed to fit the mood of a lost way of life.

I made a number of watercolour sketches of the site, which I later compared with the dock in its "heyday" from old photographs (see next post).