Victoria Pier

On photographing Hull’s famous pier

In 2014/2015 I started to make images of Hull, my hometown. I had photographed in the old town a couple of times and out of necessity had shot a couple of times on showery days. I had noticed how interesting the old town was when conditions were wet so I decided to try a session in the rain.

I took my Sony A7R and a tripod. I had been experimenting with Sony digital cameras on and off for a while and I was shooting a mix of film and digital. On this particular Sunday in the rain – after a visit to my parents’ house – it was easier to work on digital.

I started around the marina and walked onto Victoria Pier making a few frames en route. Victoria Pier – formerly Corporation Pier – was the main ferry route south from Hull across the Humber. I remember taking the ferry as a child – on a day trip with my grandad and on a school trip to Cleethorpes taking a train on the south bank. The ferry closed in 1981 after the Humber Bridge opened. The view from the pier to ‘The Deep’ was iconic and the wood in the wet conditions had made the scene quite magical.

I walked further round towards the Arctic Corsair and made a similar image using the reflections with the Clarence Flour Mills building behind – a scene I had tried several times. Roll forward to today and both scenes are inaccessible and transformed. The pier was closed permanently in 2022, the mill demolished later in 2015 and the Arctic Corsair finally moved to its new resting place in 2026.