History of Cottingham: Snickets - Boardside Walk 

From fishing for Sticklebacks as a child to walking my Husky in my 50's this video is just beautiful for me.

Me and Sonya watched it in the car down Hallgate as the Christmas lights twinkled. Sonya can't walk too well so I drove down to show her the start and end of your walk. I liked the bit about the enclosures. A forgotten but traumatic time in our history. I wrote my dissertation partially on this and compared them with the "enclosure" of the commons online and restriction of free speech/access etc. More relevant than ever. I think you're right about the age of the path. Who knows how old it is? It got me thinking that it passes right by the site of the Augustinian priory when it crosses the train track and then runs straight to the church. .This has to be significant. Hallgate is the old route to the castle but Celtic coins were found in gardens along it and I have a weird feeling that the motte is a prehistoric mound. No evidence yet though! I also think the church sits on an ancient pagan site. Hallgate and the snicket could be very old. Cottingham has so many springs and good water sources it had to be important going way back into prehistory. Look forward to the other videos!

An interesting video! Apparently the houses at the end of Exeter were built for the wardens of St Mary's church and originally had names before numbers. The names were given from the places the wardens originally came. Some still have these on the house!

Oh man, I haven't watched this yet but I immediately hit like. I visit Cottingham every day and I often wonder about all the little passageways and snickets. Cottingham has a really good feel about it,. There are lots of springs around and you get the feeling it's really old. High status Celtic items have been found around the place so I've always felt it was a lot older than the Saxons as we're told. I have a book by a local Victorian who thought the name came from Ket, a name for the Celtic Goddess Keridwen. But I'm blabbering now! I look forward to watching :)

Happy days, I remember climbing over the concrete fence on dog sh*te lane as a kid in the late 70's/early 80's. There was a particular lamp post that made it easy. Our bounty, bags full of conkers! Got our collars felt once by a local bobby for trespass - didn't stop us going back the next autumn.

Many thanks for another fascinating video. I used this snicket when I attended Cottingham Hallgate Primary School (too many decades ago to admit to) & I was transported right back to those uncomplicated days. I can still remember precise details of atmospheric elements (to me then) along the beck side despite not being aware of their historical significance at the time, so your film is answering questions that that child wondered about. I've lived all over the country since then & I may be biased but I think Cottingham as a settlement has a particular warmth of character which sets it apart from many other places.

Hi, I live down endyke (not endike) lane, and I used to use this tenfoot every single day for 7 years on my way to and from cott high ( school and sixth form) I never knew the interesting history behind it. I would like to thank you so much for giving us this knowledge. As more of a side point - I remember walking down here from the railway station to new village road on my way back from school - as the builders were ripping down the wooden fence to thwaite gardens and replacing it with the see through mesh that stands there now. I can't particularly say I have many stories of this alleyway, except perhaps for the odd drunk i'd see, or the time my brother was mugged down there. The only 2 strong memories I have, is the first, of me listening to the then new Christopher Lee heavy metal album, Charlemagne by the Sword and the Cross. And the second, me walking down there, towards the village pub of the Cross Keys down Newgate, at 8 o'clock of a very, very cold December evening to go on my first ever date with a girl I'd known for a while at school but only had the courage to offer her a drink on her 18th birthday. We did have a great night out - but unfortunately nothing ever came of it, and, as typical of a first love, it was ground into the dirt as it sprung, before it could blossom. I haven't ventured down the tenfoot since about 2018/19, so it's great to see it again. It is literally about a 50 second walk from my house, so I may take a nostalgia trip tomorrow thanks to this video. Thank you again for bringing back memories, even if those memories were only a few years old.

Great video, thanks for the memories when i used to use them on my bmx back in the day going from endyke to cott....

Great series Mate, I spent half my youth down the Snickets of Cottingham ( All of them ), There was a Fable/Folklore ( in the 70's/ 80's ) that down the part of the snicket that runs from the Station to New Village Rd, If you went down there late at night you would see the "Mad Monk", Any one else remember this ? So one night a load of us went to see if it was true...... Of course it was only a Myth, but we were still pretty scared, it was dark and kinda spooky Amazingly about half way down We saw him, standing in the shadows, holding a staff and nodding his hood covered head....We were scared but baffled, it can't be ? but we could see it with our own eyes, So we slowly edged closer and closer egging each other on ! As we got pretty close we all realised what was causing the Illusion, the shadow caused by the concrete wall looked like the body of the Monk, the "hooded head" was the branches of a tree gently blowing in the night breeze and the "staff" was a "no cycling" sign...... the MAD MONK Mythbusted !!

Good to see you again. Look forward to the next vlog

Nice to see you back.

Thanks for this video. Nice to see the old snicket again. I used to live on new village road but moved up north 20 years ago. I could still walk the full length of that snicket blindfold. Thanks again.

Super that you are back. Very interesting, thank you. Looking forward to something about Beverley, where I moved to, aged 12, in 1955 after growing up in the prefabs in Froghall Lane, Hull. I now live in Leipzig.

Having discovered your channel only recently, I'm gradually working my way through. I knew Cottingham well growing up in Hull and then, as soon as I went away to Uni, my parents moved to Cottingham (Castle Park, near the hospital) and lived there for almost the next 40 years. So, I came to know Cottingham particularly well. It's interesting that you call them snickets, although you refer to "ten foot", the local term for an "alleyway", early on in the video. Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate to call these paths "ten foots", as that name derives from the housing bylaws, if I recall correctly, which specified the width of the ways between the backs of terraced houses. In Lancashire, where I was born and spent my early childhood, these are mostly just called alleyways, or back alleys. I can't recall ten foot being used anywhere except Hull, but I may well be wrong. Snicket, on the other hand, seems to be much more geographically widely used, referring more to a cut-through. Your theory that this particular snicket was the start of a "trade route" between Cottingham and Holderness is interesting but, by 1770, many of the main present day roads would have existed. So, why was a narrow, and possibly more dangerous, pedestrian route alongside a probably not very sweet-smelling drain needed? Would it be to avoid tolls or HM Customs and Revenue perhaps?

A smashing insight into a Cottingham not known to me. Thank you so much. Great to see you back online!

Superb Video so much info.

I have now watched your series a couple of times and it hasn't aged. I really enjoy it. I am very pleased to see you back and really enjoyed this. Please keep it going and thank you.

Nice to see you back 👍

I actually live in one of the houses at the end of Exeter street. It’s quite strange to think that the back of our house was once the front, although I did know this previous to the video. Very interesting stuff.

Good to have another video from you!

A very merry Christmas to the brilliant Hull history nerd & all his subscribers. And hopefully 2021 will be a better year!

Thank you Mr Nerd! Lots of memories came flooding back when I saw this.

Good to see you back HHN

That was really interesting, can't wait for the next one!

Great to see you back again. Really interesting video.

My mother was born and bred in London on the edge of Essex but used the term snickets for cut thru from road to road that were pedestrian only and probably been there pre 1900 when walthamstow was growkng fast...

Very interesting, I'm looking forward to the next one, very Informative. You probably have a lot of topics you want to cover but can I just throw one out there... The history of Hedon, particularly Hedon Haven. It was the major port before Hull. The church also has a interesting history dating back to the 1100's

Pleased to see you're back!

Welcome Back. Very interesting film. I’ve heard about the snickets but didn’t know anything about them, until now. 10/10

Great to see you back, interesting stuff as always.

Good to see you back, thank you.

Good to see you back on YT. Look forward to more in this series.

Yeah. Good to see you back and your great videos.

absolutely love watching your videos

Good to see you again. I look forward to seeing the rest of the series.

A part of hull i've never heard about.. nice. Great to see you back anyway looking forward to more content from you :)

Marvellous! Looking forward to more.

Good to see you back! I also use to live in Cottingham, so this brought back memories of walking to school down this snicket!

Ahhhhh I love Sundays....Martin zero and hull history nerd is back!

Great to have you back. Looking forward to more local history 👍

Wonderful to see you back, use to go down that path as a lad

Welcome back mate my work's around Cottingham and he uses the same way and thanks for putting my name on that made me happy

Fascinating stuff, as always. Thanks.

Excellent...just what need this Sunday evening 👍 Another one of your very entertaining and informative videos...more...more.. more 👍🙂

Welcome back

Welcome back Jamie. I knew about the enclosures but nothing about the snickets until now. Interesting that one of the maps included the site of a priory.

Welcome back m8

So glad to see you back! I found your channel a few weeks ago and have watched all the videos , but noticed you’ve been gone for a while. Nice to see you’ve returned and doing a series on Cottingham.

I've walked these snickets maybe 200 times and I'm so annoyed that I didn't look properly!

Very interesting, looking forward to more of the same

I missed these vids!

Nice to know you survived lockdown

Enjoying this. You’re a TV natural. I libed on Kirby Drive as a kid in a house overlooking the school. But I never knew the snicket was called Caukeel Lane and never heard the name mentioned. Does anyone know how old the name is? The sign is new. I don’t remember the sign at least from the seventies.

New subscriber - Interesting video, thank you for making :) Can I ask if you use a mount on your camera to make your footage so smooth when you walk? Lo_ok forward to more videos!

The old straight track by Alfred Watkins maybe of interest

Paupers Village wouldn't go down well on Estate Agents Brochure!!

Are you on Instagram?