Good morning, guys. Welcome back to our road trip
across Northern England.
Right now we are in Kingston Upon Hull.
Hull was recently named the UK city of culture for 2017
So we're here to find out a bit more of its contribution
to England's heritage. Let's roll.
Well guys, we've managed to score another day
of really good weather here,
which is always a surprise in this corner of the world.
But it should be mentioned that Hull is undergoing
lots of reconstruction.
They're basically just pimping it out for 2017.
So where are we off to first, Bro?
One of the biggest contributions Hull had to
English heritage was in the maritime field.
This was a major port in medieval times,
all the way through to modern era.
We're going to head to the Maritime Museum right now,
and meet with the local expert who is going to teach us
a bit more about its role.
Let's go. I think it's "anchors away."
Hull was founded in the 1100s as a trading port and
throughout the Middle Ages became part
of the Hanseatic League, which was basically
the precursor to the European Union, like this
sort of network of trading ports
around Northern Europe,
which connected England
and the British Isles all the way with Germany,
the Baltic states, and Scandanavia.
The reason we are here is to look at Hull's maritime history.
Hull was built, literally, to export wool,
and that's what it did first of all.
Not only exported wool,
but it also exported lead.
And the merchants got quite rich on them.
The sea was the first world wide web,
and Hull people and ships
did their business in great waters.
Scratch any story of
the sea from across the world,
and you'll find Hull people and ships.
Well that was super interesting
I think one of the most fascinating parts of travel
is by connecting the dots from different places
and people.
In the last year we've been
to cities in the Hanseatic League like
Talilnn, Estonia
And you can see those connections here
in the architecture, in some of the street names.
It's crazy how commercial ventures can connect a city
like this to the rest of the world.
England is such a maritime nation,
and cities like Hull are the ones that sent
the British out into the world.
It's pretty interesting.
Something quirky about Hull:
It's the only place in the UK
that has white telephone booths
Now we're down at the waterfront.
We're standing in front of the Arctic Corsair,
which is a fishing trawler that used to fish
way up in the North Atlantic.
We're meeting up with Derrick and Wally
who are two guys who worked as fisherman
for a long time.
According to Wally here,
over 900 trawlers
left Hull and never returned.
And over 6000 of these fishermen
were lost at sea, including your father,
your uncle, two uncles,
and a father.
You see these lists back here of all these names,
and then the plaques on the other wall
of all the faces of the people
who died at sea here in Hull.
It's crazy and it really puts into prespective
how important this industry was
and how many people died fishing
here in Hull because
they were motoring all the way up to Iceland
Definitely a dangerous job
and not one for the faint of heart.
Pretty insane guys. To put his into perspective:
these guys would go out fishing
for two to three weeks,
and in that time
they would fill this hold with literally 4 or 5 tons of fish.
That's anywhere between 10 and 20,000 fish.
They would be up to their chests in live fish,
and they would have to gut all of those fish
on the deck before they could go
into this machine back here.
Basically, it was like a conveyor belt,
and it would dump the fish down into the hold.
And then there would be other guys here
who would be shoveling ice onto the fish
to keep them fresh.
Let's see where we used to sleep? Down here? Down here
That says danger. Keep out.
Is that because all of the smell
from you guys sleeping down there?
No, the anchor's down here. [Laugh}.
That's the anchor down there, huh?
Yeah. But normally you would have slept down there?
Yeah. There are two bunks on that side.
There are two bunks on this side.
That's where we slept
There's dead man's corner.
There's no where to stand.
When that sea ponies over,
if you was caught there
that'd smash your arms up bulkhead and kill ya.
Story of cod fishing is just a fascinating one.
At one point they thought that there were so many
codfish that you could walk clear from Europe
to North America on the backs of codfish.
It was so lucrative that they called the fishing spots
silver pits.
But eventually, cod was over fished.
That was made even worse in the 1970s
with what was called the Cod Wars.
Iceland, asserting its territorial control
over its waters,
and not letting English fishing trawlers
fish off their coasts
where they did for hundreds of years.
And that combined with the mechanization of the
cargo port, really lead to bad times for the city.
And it's been basically trying to recover
ever since that double blow in the mid 1970s.
Man. those guys have some stories, huh?
Fishermen and their tales.
For sure. But maybe the most long-lasting story of
English fishermen is the dish that we most commonly
associate with the UK: fish and chips.
So we're going to head into the Lion and Key,
one of the oldest pubs in town here,
have a pint, have some lunch, and then start
an ale trail.
Chips
That's it right there.
Cheers. Yum. Thank you.
One pub down. The next one is Ye Olde Heart,
which has a pretty interesting story because
it's the pub that sparked in many ways
the English Civil War back in the 1600s.
You've got to love when you walk into a pub
and there's just a huge human skull on display.
No big deal. Chill.
So now we are in the Plotting Parlour,
which is named like this because it used to be
the governor's house,
and a couple citizens at the outbreak
of the English Civil War
decided to deny the king,
Charles the First, entry into the city.
And you know what happens when you deny the king?
You get seiged. Bad things happen.
There was a seige that happened after that,
and that was the first conflict of the
English Civil War,
and it eventually.....
Pretty poorly for Charles, right?
Yeah, he lost his head.
What do you think we should plot in this room, Bro?
I think we should plot to have more pints.
I think we should plot the same thing we plot everyday:
How to take over the world!!
I know the last video was about haunted places, but......
yeah, I feel it here!
What is that?
Where?
Oh my god.
There's an arm in here.
Limbs everywhere
and then there's...oh my god
that scared the hell out of me.
I know, right?
Thank you.
So you might notice that
Ye Olde White Harte
heart is actually a deer.
Not like the heart in your chest.
And we just learned that that is because
King Richard the Second mandated
that all pubs have some sort of sign.
I just generally love the way that
pubs are named in the UK.
Now please don't take this the wrong way,
but there are so many names of pubs that are
really sexual, but also not.
And I don't know if this is like a running joke,
but I don't get it.
Because the word "cock" means a hen.
No, a cock means a rooster.
Well yeah, OK.
Either way, it's not perverted: it's just old English
So this is the most narrow and small window
in all England.
It was designed to allow
the porter to be able to see when coaches were coming
so he could give them good service.
That's the George Pub here at home.
Right guys. Well...
kind of an interesting turn of events this afternoon.
We are being interviewed by ITV
And we're in front of the Hull Theater,
which is kind of a landmark in the city.
Now it's a big year for Hull.
There's a lot of people here who are excited about
becoming the city of culture,
and I think they're interested to see what we think,
which so far has been....[thumbs-up] all positive.
Anyway, we're going to head back inside
because we have to do a quick interview with
the theater director.
My name is Mark Babich
I'm the artistic director of Hull Truck Theater
It started in the early 1970s by
a director called Mike Bradwell
who was with a bunch of quite revoluntionary
theater makers,
and they decided to create
a theater companty in probably the least likely place
in the early 1970s, and that was Hull
And they literally started from making work out of
the back of the truck.
So hence the name Hull Truck.
It's been quite the day, man.
I've had a great time here in Hull.
We've explored part of the city,
and now we're going to the marina.
We're going to this restaurant, 1884,
which has played a part of giving some energy
to this part of the city.
Hull was really badly damaged in WW2.
So not only did you have the fishing industry leave,
the port kind of shut down. But in World War Two,
90 -95 % of the city was destroyed in the whole Blitz,
which was basically a German bombing campaign.
Restaurants like 1884
have started putting in a lot of energy
in this part of the city.
So we're going to go meet up with Laura Waller. the chef
and have some "din dins."
Started off as an attempt to bring the Manhattan style
steak house to the UK.
But also to put something in an area that previously
had been quite neglected for a number of years.
It's all very beautifully presented.
We have venison wellington, some sea bream and sole,
all local produce,
all delicious
I momentarily forgot that I'm eating pure bacon and lard.
It's super nice.
Mark said that eating
bacon makes your beard better.
What bacon does is put the oil in your beard
that you need to make it all thick.
It also puts the oil in your heart that
makes you have a heart attack.
But trade-offs, man.
Beards are worth it, right?
until you have a heart attack.
Until you have a heart attack.
Well, I had an absolutely amazing day here in Hull.
It was super fun.
Yeah, we definitely did.
It's been a great little addition to our
road trip here in Northern England.
So if you've not seen the rest of the videos,
make sure you check out the rest of this playlist.
There're links in the description box.
If you like the video, make sure you give it a thumbs-up,
share it with your friends,
and subscribe to Vagabrothers
for new travel videos every Tuesday.
In the meantime remember to stay curious,
keep exploring,
and we'll see you guys on the road.
Next stop: Liverpool.
Peace.
I means Leeds. We're going to Leeds, actually.
[Laugh]