Geograph - photograph every grid square

Awarded local nature reserve status in November 2011, Noddle Hill Nature Reserve is owned and managed by Kingston upon Hull City Council. The 118-acre (48 hectare) site includes a fishing lake, ponds, a woodland walk, a butterfly walk, a wildflower meadow, picnic benches, and wetlands for rare water beetles, great crested newts, grass snakes and water voles. It is bordered by Bransholme Road (entrance / exit), Sutton Cross Drain, Foredyke Stream and Holderness Drain. It is open 24 hours per day, every day, free-of-charge.

Further information:
Hull CC News: Link Visit Hull: Link BBC: Link Hull Daily Mail: Link Yorkshire Dragonfly Group: Link

The Foredyke Stream has a complex history with multiple phases of construction and modification. The earliest parts of the stream, used by the monks of Meaux Abbey to access Wyke upon Hull, were likely established 1221-1235, with subsequent improvements over the centuries.

The Holderness Drainage Act of 1764 allowed for the drainage of low-lying land east of the River Hull in Holderness. A drain called Foredyke Stream was constructed, discharging into the River Hull immediately north of the former North Bridge. It was completed by 1770 when it was then known as The Main Drain. By the 1960s, the stream was no longer viable in its original form and was diverted to flow into the Holderness Drain. After 1968, the old channel was filled in with soil and aggregates, except for the stretch between Foredyke Clough and Great Culvert adjacent to Holderness Drain, which was still operational in 2025. The infilled drain between Spyvee Street and Sutton Road is now a designated footpath and cycle-track, the Foredyke Route, part of National Cycle Network Route 66.

Further reading:
Holderness Drain: Link
The Victoria County History of York East Riding, Volume I, 1969, p 475
‘The Draining of the Hull Valley’ by June Sheppard, 1958: Link
New Cleveland Street bridge: Link
Hull History Centre: Tate’s Plan of Sutton, 1770