‘The energy of movement, and the bridge responds’: A walk along Murdoch’s Connection
This Place, a column by Vicky Foster
Exploring Hull & East Yorkshire
It’s 2pm on a sunny March afternoon as I pass Princes Quay and approach Murdoch’s Connection.
Traffic’s flowing fast down Castle Street and laughter and shouts are coming from the direction I’m walking in.
Lorries are sounding the deep bellow of their horns as they move below the bridge and I assume someone must be messing about on top, waving at them as they pass.
There are a lot of people about; kids on scooters, someone walking a pair of Chihuahuas, pram-pushers, couples, families, pairs of friends. There’s a stepped stone seating area on this side of the bridge, which is in the shade at this time on this day, and a group of grey-track-suited boys and a couple of girls lounge there.
Walking up the slope from here, you get to see a slice of sky from the opposite side of the road before you reach the top. Blue, flashed with the red brick of tall warehouse buildings.
There are points on the path where a trick of the angles makes roads, stairs and footways appear to intersect, criss-crossing in unlikely ways.
SUPER STRUCTURE: Murdoch’s Connection. Picture by Harry Foster
Everyone I pass seems to be smiling, which might have something to do with the fact that today marks the first loosening of lockdown rules, or that we’ve had the hottest March temperatures in half a century, but maybe, I think, it also has something to do with this bridge.
By the time I reach the top of the footway, I’m convinced of it. It’s bright and breezy. There’s movement everywhere. People, cars, and the ripple of water are shifting all around you. The masts of the boats in the marina stretch up into the clear blue sky and there’s a view of the Minster’s tower away to the left.
But the piece-de-resistance is the walkway of the bridge itself. I’ve heard people say it looks like Sid from Ice Age, or a spaceship, the Sydney Opera House, or a whalebone, and there’s a general consensus that it also resembles a stretched piece of white fabric, like a headscarf.
‘A TRICK OF THE ANGLES WHERE EVERYTHING INTERSECTS’: Murdoch’s Connection. Picture by Harry Foster
This last one is one of the reasons many people thought the bridge should have been named after Lillian Bilocca, but a vote by the public on a shortlist of legendary Hull figures made Dr Mary Murdoch its namesake.
I was pleased with this; she had been my choice. Some complained that she wasn’t well-known enough to have a bridge named after her, but for me, that just underlines the reason why it should have been her.
Dr Mary Murdoch was Hull’s first female doctor, then one of only a clutch of female doctors in the whole country. She was a house surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children on Park Street, and she also campaigned hard for women’s rights, founding the Hull Women’s Suffrage Society in 1904.
Probably most relevant to her association with this bridge though, is that she was the first woman in Hull to own a car and was reputed to drive it at speed. So, surely, she would have approved of anything that was going to keep things moving along Castle Street, and her bridge certainly seems to be doing that.
Once you make your way through the pocket-shaped entrance onto the walkway, you’re more sheltered. The noise is dulled and there are viewing points where you can admire the dyed blue water of Princes Dock and the view of the city.
There’s a feel of a visitor attraction when you step inside –something in the construction and the materials they’ve used to build it - the taut iron cables, the curves and angles, the white plastic, the clean grey-black rubbery surfaces.
Add in the energy of the movement all around you, the slight undulations and vibrations as the bridge responds, and it’s almost like you’re waiting in line at a theme park.
The light and shade cut geometric shapes beneath your feet as you walk, and as you reach the middle, traffic flows east and west, towards the docks or the motorway, and a steady river of people cross north and south, to the marina or the city centre.
‘FEELS LIKE THE ENTRANCE TO A THEME PARK’: Murdoch’s Connection. Picture by Harry Foster
When I emerge back into the sun on the opposite side, the view opens up; the lightship, the row of buildings along the water’s edge, the muddy Humber beyond those. The far, south bank of the river beyond that. And above it all, Hull’s famous wide flat sky.
The wide wedges of concrete that make up the seating area on this side are particularly popular today. They’re almost full, when you take into account social distancing, which people do seem to be doing.
Pairs and trios of bodies face the big white sun. People in work-clothes, suits and lanyards, skinny jeans and vest tops, have stopped to show their skin to the sky. A man in orange overalls has paused to lean on railings on the deck of a yacht.
Temporarily abandoned bikes and discarded backpacks take up any empty space. There’s a girl in a straw hat, a French bulldog lounging on a lead, a whippet walking past, and lots of schoolkids, filling up a day in their Easter holidays.
Coats slide off shoulders. A girl shakes out her long hair. A man in a Harrington steps up from a bench, stretches out his back, laughing with a friend. He walks away and his friend lifts his eyes to the view. Leans back.
Sundown at Murdoch’s Connection. Picture supplied by Highways England
The trucks are still sounding their horns behind me as I sit down with everyone else. There’s nobody waving at them as far as I can tell. I wonder how this new tradition sprung up. Why are they all doing it? Do they know the trucks that passed earlier did the same?
I can’t ask them, so I’ll have to keep wondering. I also can’t take an opinion poll today to find out what people think of the new bridge. And even if I could, I wouldn’t disturb these people, in these first days of sunshine, after a year like the one we’ve had.
But I don’t need to, anyway. It’s clear from everything around me that Murdoch’s Connection is a big hit in Hull.