‘Hull Streetlife museum made me feel like a kid again‘
JACK BOWMAN TAKES A TRIPDOWN MEMORY LANE
SINCE opening back in 1989 - Hull’s Streetlife Museum has been a fan favourite.
I last stepped foot in the place for the first time probably 20 years ago now. Back then, The Deep was freshly opened, yet wandering around cars, trams and trains back from the 19th century would be my favourite way to spend an afternoon.
I recently visited the Wilberforce House Museum as it reopened last year for the first time since before the pandemic. Although time was against me, I vowed to spend an afternoon in what was once my favourite place in the city centre. Strolling through the gardens of the Museum Quarter, something that I took for granted was just how peaceful the place is with the greenery and little benches ideal for a museum day picnic. The shutter doors that were so distinctive bright yellow against the otherwise brown building made me feel like a kid again.
The nostalgia was once again ramped up as I walked into the immersive sets as dummies shouted down from the top deck of a tram. Whereas in my youth I would’ve had a sensory overload and got lost in the world - in my mature years I was able to read up on the actual history. I found out that the tram that welcomes the thousands of guests a year was Tram 132 - the only surviving double-decker tram from Hull. The beast was built in 1909/10 at Liverpool Street, just off Hessle Road in fact.
Although I swear that you could go into the 100-year-old piece of history back in “my” day and sit on the top deck, the area is entirely blocked off although you can go in Britain’s oldest surviving tram car just next to it - constructed way back in 1867. Something that I have done plenty of times in my 26 years.
The trip through time - both personally and figuratively - took us into the old-timey shop recreations. The first shop was a chemist’s, with shelves stacked with prop jars of remedies. It turns out that the entire layout has been recreated from an old Leeds chemist belonging to Walter Thomas Castelow - England’s oldest practising chemist who refused to retire. You don’t get them anymore.
The shop was knocked down in 1976 - with the fittings and contents coming to Hull Museums. Originally called Bentley’s when it opened in 1841, Castelow took it over in 1907, until his death on May 30, 1974, at the tender age of 98. Now I have an appreciation of history, this shop recreation gave me the same joy as it did 20 years ago - the key reason I came back.
Seemingly the only thing that hasn’t risen in price since the Noughties was the price of the old-fashioned attractions in the museum - with the majority of them costing 20p. The laughing doll is still pure nightmare fuel, but it was a throwback in and of itself. Something that must be new is a looping 10-minute video of a walk around Hull Fair which was pretty neat.
While going upstairs to the different exhibitions of bikes and carriages, people can get a great view of the River Hull. I remember it offering a great viewpoint of the Arctic Corsair which museum-goers could once go aboard. The last sidewinder vacated the bank back in 2019 ahead of a welldocumented refurbishment to become a new visitor attraction at North End Shipyard.
The time-travel immersion continued upstairs - taking me to the Victorian era as part of the in-depth history of horse and cart. Sensors meant that people walking by got shouted at by dummies overlooking from a balcony - or in my case I got barked at by an animatronic dog. I remember that there is a simulator of being mugged or “stand and delivered” in a horse-drawn carriage, and I’m unsure if that is still a thing, even though the carriage was there.
A new attraction was the Clive Sullivan and Hull Rugby exhibition celebrating both teams and, arguably, the best player to ever don both strips of Black & White and Red & White. Encased in glass, the exhibition has match-worn jackets from the Challenge Cup Final in 1980, decades-old programs and some cheerful information about both teams. A third team gets a special mention - the Hull Roundheads Rugby union team, a gay and inclusive team for LGBT communities, yet another nice touch.
The Streetlife Museum is undoubtedly one of Hull’s best. The over 100-year-old cars, buses and trams are in immaculate condition and it gave me the same joy now as it did when I was a kid.
I could not recommend the place highly enough, and now I’m playing the waiting game until the Maritime Museum, which I ranked equally as a kid, reopens. Good things to look forward to for history buffs in the city.