One of the consequences of the popularity of suburban living is that places that were once distinct communities in their own right have been “swallowed up” by the growth of modern housing. Kirkella is a case in point and as the green fields of yesteryear have disappeared under bricks and mortar, the dividing lines separating it from other west Hull villages like Anlaby and Willerby have become blurred. Martin Limon reports . . .

Kirk Ella House, in Church Lane, was built in 1779 and occupied by John Stephenson, a Hull merchant. After he died in 1786, it was sold to another Hull merchant, Thomas Howarth

The growth of villages can sometimes be a fascinating business and through a study of old Ordnance Survey maps, it is possible to investigate changes affecting localities over a period of time.

A study of such maps, for example, reveals the links between the growth of Hull and the growth of Kirkella.

With the outward expansion of Hull in the late 18th and 19th centuries came a desire of the “well-to-do” to escape from the noise, smells and hustle of life in a growing commercial centre to a more peaceful and pleasant country environment.

The village of Kirkella, about five miles north-west of Hull, was ideally placed to attract such settlement and, as a house advertisement from 1771 said: “It is most desirably situated on a rising ground and commands an extensive and delightful prospect of the surrounding country, the town of Hull, the hills of Lincolnshire and the River Humber for an extent of 30 miles.”

In fact, the advantages of Kirkella as a place for settlement had long been recognised, for it lay on a spring line between the higher land of the Yorkshire Wolds and the low-lying marshes and carrs leading down to the Humber.

The place name “Ella” and its alternative of “Elverley” (used in the Middle Ages) suggests a history for the village dating back to Anglo-Saxon times and is thought to be derived from “Aela’s woodland clearing”.

The prefix “Kirk” indicates that there was a church here, too, and the Domesday Book of 1086, which suggests that around the time of the Norman Conquest there were only about 30 villagers, confirms this.

The Church of St Andrew, part of which dates back to the 13th century, remains the oldest building in the village. Inside is an impressive monument in white marble to Joseph Sykes (1723-1805), a member of a rich Hull merchant family and this provides evidence of how Kirkella had become a desirable place to live by the beginning of the 19th century.

Joseph Sykes had grown wealthy from his activities in the Swedish iron trade that supplied the Sheffield steel industry with its raw material. His wealth and social standing led him to be chosen as Sheriff of Hull (1754) and twice as Mayor (1761 and 1777) and from the 1750s he began buying land and property in Kirkella.

His decision to move to a quieter and more wholesome location away from the noxious smells of Hull’s High Street may have been influenced by the availability of better transport by road. In February 1745, the Hull-Anlaby-Kirkella Turnpike Trust was created by Act of Parliament and began to improve the condition of a road that hitherto had often been made impassable by flooding.

The purchase of West Ella Hall by Joseph Sykes in 1756 was an example soon followed by others from Hull’s merchant elite.

Close to the historic village centre is Kirkella House in Church Lane (built in 1779) owned, initially, by John Stephenson (a Hull merchant) and subsequently by others of a similar social standing, including the Hull banker Robert Pease (1796).

By the time the journalist Edward Baines wrote about Kirkella in 1823, the population had risen to 368 people and his village directory of that year listed 14 people described as “gentry”, including Joseph Egginton (magistrate) and Anthony Jones (silversmith).

Of course, his directory also contained the names of those of more humble origins, including a blacksmith, a butcher, two shopkeepers and two shoemakers.

Seventy years later, a village directory of 1892 recorded a similar mix of gentlemen, professionals and tradesmen, ranging from Daniel Sykes of Kirkella Hall to Miss Fanny Youngson, the licensee of the Wheatsheaf Public House.

An old postcard view of Kirkella Church of England Primary School. It was built 1859-1860 with funds and land given by Major Richard Sykes. There was a master’s house incorporated into the school. In 1892, the schoolmaster was Henry Hurst

Also listed in the directory was Robert Hellyer, a retired shipowner, living at Western Villa in the village. The 1881 census shows that Robert Hellyer, his wife, Sarah, and daughter, Jane, had been born at Brixham in Devon.

It was the fishing trade that brought them to Hull, for Robert Hellyer was a trawler owner who grew rich on the profits of this rapidly-expanding industry. He was thus able to fund his comfortable retirement years in the peaceful village of Kirkella . It is interesting to note, however, that when he died in 1912, his body was returned to Brixham for burial.

The 1892 directory also shows us that a number of villagers worked in Hull. These included Wilson Barkworth (solicitor) and James Gough, a piano manufacturer of the firm, Gough and Davy. These early commuters were able to make use of the nearby station on the Hull and Barnsley Railway (opened July 1885) for a fast journey into work or a more sedate mode of transport using Samuel Binnington’s horse-drawn bus that operated between Kirkella Church and Carr Lane in Hull (replaced by 1914 with motor buses).

It was, in fact, the “motor revolution” and a growing car ownership, more than any other factor, that helped to stimulate the growth of Kirkella in the 1920s and 1930s and which gathered pace in the decades after the Second World War.

In the 1930s, for example, there was considerable new house-building in places like Church Lane and Beverley Road, Kirkella. In the process, some of the villages’s older properties with their extensive gardens (for example in Godman Lane) disappeared.

One that has survived is Kirkella Hall, in Packman Lane (built around 1806-1810) and now Hull Golf Club.

The club had opened its first golf course on Hull’s Anlaby Road in 1904 but had been given notice to quit (April 1923) after the city council announced a road-widening scheme in the area. A letter of the 5th November, 1923 told members of its proposed replacement by a course in Kirkella, comprising: “Kirkella Hall with three cottages, stables, gardens etc and parkland containing about 48 acres and belonging to E. Starkey Wade, Esq together with an adjoining 60 acres of parkland belonging to Captain C.A.V. Sykes of West Ella.”

The club paid Mr Wade the amazing sum (at today’s prices) of £11,500 for Kirkella Hall, the cottages and the land and this included a seven-acre plot on Packman Lane not needed for the course and described as “eligible and ripe for building plots”. The other land (belonging to Mr Sykes) was at first leased and finally bought in 1945 for £12,117.

David Crossley is secretary and general manager of Hull Golf Club

The new course, designed by accomplished golf course designer James Braid, opened in May 1925 and has been in use ever since. During a recent visit, I met David Crossley, who has been a member for 20 years and has been secretary for over three years.

He told me: “I am responsible for the day-to-day management of the club – from organising golf competitions to health and safety issues. We employ over 20 staff and have over 600 members, ranging from youngsters aged nine or 10 to a couple of members who are in their 80s.”

One of the concerns of the club during the present recession is membership renewal but David was cheerfully upbeat and positive about future prospects, pointing out that when times are tough, people often preserve their hobbies as a release from the everyday pressures of business.

As he also pointed out, the Hull Golf Club has an excellent reputation for the facilities that it offers.

“ We have a course that is kept in tip-top condition and our greens are widely regarded as the best in the area. A unique feature of the club is our state-of-the-art teaching studio offering a full video and computer analysis of how a golf shot has been played in terms of both distance and direction.”

Kirkella’s own golf course was yet another factor that enhanced the reputation of the village as a very desirable place to live and, like Robert Hellyer before, many trawler skippers of the 1950s and 1960s aspired to have homes here. During a debate in the House of Commons in 1981, Kevin McNamara MP went as far as to claim “the foundations of the houses in Kirkella were built upon cod bones”.

For other “upwardly mobile” folk, a Kirkella address also seemed to be essential and another good example was the singer David Whitfield (1926 to 1980). He was born in the dockland district of Drypool in Hull and when he left school at the age of 14, went to work as a baker’s delivery boy.

However, he also had ambitions to be a professional singer and his first engagement was at the Perth Street Club, Hull, in 1942. The breakthrough came in 1950 when he appeared on a radio version of Opportunity Knocks and his abilities as a singer brought him to the notice of the Decca Record Company, who gave him a contract in 1954.

He was soon an international star, appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show in the USA a remarkable eight times and achieving a string of hits in the popular music charts of the time.

Despite his worldwide success, David Whitfield continued to maintain a presence locally and his new-found wealth enabled him to buy a house in Kirkella.

Hull resident Kathleen Mason remembered him thus: “When I was a teenager we lived in Kirkella and often saw David Whitfield driving around in open-topped sports car and he would wave to us. He had a big house with wrought iron gates in West Ella Way. It was called Cara Mia.”

The house was named after David Whitfield’s most successful record of the 1950s. Cara Mia was released in June 1954 and it stayed at the top of the British charts for a record 10 weeks. Its success meant that he was the first UK male artist to earn a gold disc and the first British artist to get into the top 10 of the US Billboard Top 100.

Cara Mia sold a million copies in the United States alone.

Today, Kirkella has another celebrity in world-famous hairdresser Mark Hill, whose salon is in the village, and seems to be as popular a place to live as it was 200 years ago when it became the favoured location of Hull’s merchant class. In the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 5,661 and other data points to a prosperity unsurpassed in East Yorkshire with the vast majority of households being owner-occupied.

However, as the vicar of Kirkella, Jonathan Juckes, explained to me, there is another side to this picture.

“Everyone who lives here knows that Kirkella has its share of happy families as well as its share of hurting families. There are many people in the village who are growing older and for some the village can be a lonely place to live,” he told me.

To foster a renewed spirit of community, therefore, plans are well advanced to build the St Andrew’s Centre alongside the existing church building. It will provide a space for up to 120 people to eat a simple lunch or tea as well as for other community activities.

As Jonathan enthused: “The St Andrew’s Centre will provide a much-needed space at the heart of the village for the church and the community to share.”