When Karl Bushby set off on his quest to walk around the world in 1998 – on a mission to become the first person in history to travel an unbroken path around the world without any form of motorised transportation – the world was a very different place. Tony Blair was Prime Minister following a landslide victory for the Labour Party the previous year, the Spice Girls were named the World’s Best-Selling Pop Group, a pint of milk was 34p and a litre of unleaded petrol cost an average of 65p.
Hull was a very different city back then too, since transforming from a post-industrial port shaped by traditional manufacturing into a cultural hub, not least of all thanks to its legacy as the UK City of Culture in 2017. Now Karl is back in the UK and is set to be back in Hull within weeks.
As Karl moves ever closer to the finish line – his mum’s house where his epic journey began – we shine a light on 28 things in and around Hull that Karl has missed in the last 28 years. No doubt there are many more too!
1 Kingswood housing and retail areas – Work was only just getting started on Kingswood’s retail park and housing developments in 1998, when the area was still largely empty fields. Today, it is a massive, fully developed suburban scheme featuring huge shopping developments, restaurants, the Cineworld cinema (which opened as UGC in 2000) and hundreds of houses.
2 St Stephen’s shopping centre – The shopping centre opened in 2007 to great fanfare, and now has more than 50 retail units offering major high street names alongside a number of restaurants and a cinema. Over the summer alone it welcomed more than four million visitors. At the other end of Ferensway, the former Cecil Cinema – which became a Mecca Bingo – sits empty but plans were put forward last year to turn it into a Church.
3 MKM Stadium – Conceived in the late 1990s, the impressive MKM Stadium opened in 2002 at a cost of around £44m and is now is home to both Premier League team Hull City and Super League rugby club Hull FC. Originally called the KC Stadium, named after its first sponsor Kingston Communications which has since rebranded to KCOM, it was renamed in 2021 following a sponsorship agreement with MKM Building Supplies.
4 The demolition of Boothferry Park – Hull City played their final game at Boothferry Park in December 2002 before relocating to the then-named KC Stadium. For five years from 2002, the venue sat empty and suffered severe vandalism, decay, and arson attacks. Its demolition began in 2008 and was completed in 2011 when the six floodlights that had dominated the skyline were finally pulled down. If Karl walks along to the area, he’ll discover how it has been redeveloped into a residential housing estate.
5 The introduction of bus lanes and cycle lanes – Finding his way around the city may be a new experience as he navigates updated routes.
6 Hull Women and Children’s Hospital – The facility opened in 2003 and, in its first 15 years alone, four sets of quadruplets, 11 sets of triplets and 1,163 sets of twins were born!
7 Transformation of the A63 Castle Street – The major upgrade to the A63 Castle Street in Hull took six years of continuous construction to sort out and the A road and Mytongate junction have undergone massive split-level underpass and widening transformations that were completed this year.
8 The Fruit Market and Humber Street – Back in 1998, this area was characterised by wholesale fruit warehouses and industrial decay. Since then, it has been transformed into a vibrant, award-winning cultural and residential quarter packed with independent restaurants, galleries, bars, and contemporary loft apartments.
9 Hull’s spectacular aquarium The Deep – Opening in 2002, its arrival completely changing the city’s tourism sector, alongside a host of maritime heritage projects around the Marina and North End Shipyard.
10 Many new coffee shops – Coffee has become big business so he’ll be hard-pressed to turn a corner on any city centre street and not stumble across one of the big chains or an independent venue. Back in 1998 they were significantly less abundant and nowhere near as popular as they are today. In fact, Costa Coffee’s initial arrival in Hull was not a great success. Its first store in the city opened in Abbey National’s King Edward Street branch in 2002 but it ended up closing in early 2004. The chain tried again in Waterstones in 2005, not long after Starbucks’ arrival in the city.
11 Restaurants and takeaways have come and gone – There have been a fair few that have disappeared since 1998 including the famous Hessle Road Yankee Burger. The iconic American diner with its signature pink rooftop car shut in 2005. Other names we’ve lost, to name just a handful, include Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito, Michelin-featured 1884 Dock Street Kitchen which called time in 2018, and Bun In The Oven, the Ferensway fast food spot that was demolished to make way for the St Stephen’s shopping centre.
12 The DoubleTree by Hilton hotel now dominates Ferensway on the site of the old Lexington Avenue nightclub, which closed in 2005. It was built between October 2016 and late 2017, and officially opened to guests before Christmas in December 2017.
13 Lexington Avenue disappears – The Ferensway favourite isn’t the only nightclub we’ve said goodbye to with the number of night-time venues plummeting over the years from their heyday in the 90s and early 2000s. Since Karl set off we’ve also lost Pozition, Valbon, Pepi’s, Circus Circus (though what’s left of it is still there more than 20 years after closing), Heaven & Hell, Planet Earth, Fruit, The Lamp and many more.
14 No more city centre M&S – The high street giant famously shuttered its Whitefriargate branch in 2019 but is set to expand its footprint at Kingswood Retail Park with a new 60,000sq ft full-line clothing, home, and food store expected to open in late 2027.
15 Hammonds of Hull/House of Fraser – The legendary Hammonds of Hull department store was snapped up by House of Fraser in the 1970s but was closed down in 2021, paving the way for much change at the historic building. After unsuccessfully opening as a food hall, the ground floor of the building opposite Paragon Interchange is expected to be split into four individual retail units.
16 Debenhams – The department store on Prospect Street in Hull permanently closed in May 2021, ending a nearly 70-year presence in the city as the brand moved online after being bought out by Boohoo. It is currently being converted into more than 170 apartments.
17 BHS closed in 2016 when the retail chain collapsed into administration. After sitting empty for a decade, the building is set to be demolished while preserving the Three Ships Mural as part of the Albion Square redevelopment.
18 Hull’s Holy Trinity Church officially received minster status on May 13, 2017, becoming Hull Minster.
19 Woolworths was a national institution loved by families and at one time had a number of local branches, including Whitefriargate, Hessle Road and Anlaby Road, but its remaining store in King Edward Street closed for good in 2009 following the collapse of the UK chain into administration.
20 The UCI cinema and Megabowl bowling alley at St Andrew’s Quay have also now gone along with the likes of Jazzbo Browns and Deep Pan Pizza. The leisure complex shut in 2004/2005 to be replaced by a new retail zone dominated by a Curry’s electrical store and other retail units.
21 Hull Fair changes – The fair still a huge part of the city’s entertainment calendar – but the final live boxing booth at Hull Fair happened in 1998, marking the end of some old-school traditions.
22 A number of art institutions and museums in Hull have been given a boost. Following its 2017 City of Culture status, Hull gained upgraded cultural spaces like Hull New Theatre and Ferens Art Gallery. Museums have been upgraded too including the recent reopening of the Maritime Museum after a six-year renovation.
23 1998 marked the year that the Disney Store came to Princes Quay – but it closed its doors in 2013 when the lease came to an end.
24 City centre spaces will also have changed dramatically, with areas like Trinity Square and Trinity Market transformed into bustling social hubs. Queen’s Gardens has also had an overhaul.
25 A different Princes Quay – the iconic shopping centre has been open for 35 years but it underwent a £20m makeover by Seven Dials Fund Management and Realm to add extra space ahead of Hull’s 2017 City of Culture year. It was then acquired in April 2021 by Tokyo Industries. Some major stores have long-since left the shopping centre including the huge, two-storey Virgin Megastore.
26 Primark arrives in Hull – It opened on December 8, 2005, at the former site of the Allders department store next to Princes Quay, soon cementing its position as one of the city’s busiest high-street fashion hubs.
27 Discount retailers Aldi and Lidl have become supermarket favourites with a number of stores in and around the city. The Bridges pub, in Sutton Road, not far from where Karl was living, is now an Aldi. Back in 1998, the now defunct Netto brand was still around, as was Safeway.
28. Hull City are now flying high in the Premier League after securing promotion last year. It was a very different story back in 1998 when they were near the foot of the Division Three table and the idea of one day playing top-flight football (which finally happened in 2008) seemed a world away – quite the leap for the Tigers!
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