The Larkin Trail: West to East

About

Larkin spent many of his weekends out and about beyond Hull, either on his own of with friends, finding the whole area particularly suitable for long cycle rides. This section looks at several of the places he visited, from Hessle, home of his first publishers adn the Humber Bridge, to the small market town of Beverley with its magnificent Minster. Beyond, the trail captures the more isolated landscape to the west where Larkin enjoyed cycling around tiny villages along the Humber estuary, such as Broomfleet, and finally it crosses the 'unfenced existence' of Holderness Plain to the east, taking in the village of Patrington on its way to the striking, desolate peninsula of Spurn Point.

Elsewhere, this Larkin journey is no longer linear and visits several significant locations peppered around the East Riding. Six miles from Cottingham lies another suburban village, Hessle, former home of Larkin's first publishers, George and Jean Hartley. A short distance away , Hessle Foreshore stretches along the banks of the broad Humber, dominated by the suspended 'giant step' of the Humber Bridge. Beyond, inland and further to the west, amongst the 'thin and thistled' fields around the Humber estuary, lie the quiet villages where Larkin loved to cycle. From one of these villages, Broomfleet, the trail stops off at the delightful market town of Beverley, as Larkin liked to do when returning home on his bicycle. To the east of Hull the trail heads out across the ever-lonlier Holderness Plain, where 'silence stands / Like heat', calling at Patrington to admire its exquisite church. Finally, the trail enters the dunes and grasses of Spurn Point, a remote spit of land curving into the North Sea, where 'Ends the land suddenly beyong a beach / Of shapes and shingle.'