Yahoo News I went to Fort Paull for the first time in years - and got a huge nostalgia hit
It might have taken a lot of hard graft and perseverance, but the Fort Paull heritage site is back up and running.
After four years, the 500-year-old site reopened the gates a few months ago after business partners the Two Nicks worked hard to get it back to its former glory. Plenty of volunteers also offered their services to get the newly-reopened ground ready for its first event, a car show, in late September.
Welcoming the masses to its latest event - Made It @ Fort Paull Christmas Market - I went along to retrace steps that I haven't taken since my childhood by visiting the site.
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With doors opening at 10am, I thought I'd arrive early to beat the queue, and apparently a lot of people also had this idea. I was rather made up that so many people had come down to the former battery turned museum. As well as businessmen, it turns out the Two Nicks are really effective traffic co-ordinators too because, with plenty of traffic coming to the site, it could have easily been a headache to get parked but this was not the case.
It must be well over 15 years since I've stepped foot into Fort Paull. Opened in the 1500s during the Hull Siege, it was later used as a training base between the First and Second World Wars, as well as during the conflict. At the turn of the millennium, it had reopened as a heritage museum.
Greeting the entrance on my latest visit was a Christmas tree and a model of a Spitfire - which was donated by HMP Hull. Entry was just £1 per family. Walking in, the place was already really busy with a mix of people - young families, dog walkers and what seemed to be the entire village of Paull. Christmas music was blaring over the speaker system.
The Christmas market had plenty on offer too - local coffee vendors, pizza makers and, of course, mulled wine. I ordered a latte to keep warm from the lousy autumnal weather. .
After the mooch around the market, I explored the perimeter of the pentagonal grounds - the main reason I came. Scattered along were plenty of stations and tunnels that could be explored. The first point of interest was the former armoury. A dog walker in front of me had me laughing when she exclaimed "WTF!" upon walking in, having being jump scared by the positioning of a mannequin.
In fairness, as dummies go, the ones at Fort Paull are some of the creepiest looking out there, with some looking like something from the 1984 nuclear apocalypse film Threads.
There are plenty of tunnels to explore and a personal favourite is the fact you can explore a train carriage that was used to bring home soldiers following the the Second World War. A former searchlight tower overlooking the Humber is a fun one, because you can get a good vantage point of the estuary. I must naturally gravitate to them, because on my Spurn Point walk in the summer, I loved mooching about the concrete remnants.
Meanwhile, during my visit there was a Christmas Grotto for the kids to meet Santa, which was a nice touch. I cant imagine there's a lot of grottos elsewhere quite like this!
The fact that everybody involved came together to get Fort Paull back open is a true testament as to how beloved it is. It was sad to see it go, and I was surprised and chuffed that it managed to reopen with this walk around being hugely nostalgic to me.
Keep an eye on some more of the upcoming events coming to the Fort Paull Battery Heritage site on their social media here.
