The Kingston, Wincolmlee

Some artwork I came across last night in a most obscure pub indeed, the Kingston in Wincolmlee – a pub obscure enough not to feature in Simon Mason’s otherwise exhaustive list of Hull pubs, which is saying something. This fresco represents the celebrated bare-knuckle fight of 1860 between Tom Sayers and John Camel Heenan, which ended in chaos when the ropes were cut and the public invaded the ring. Sayers had a colourfully doomed life, to judge from his Wikipedia page. The landlord in the Kingston was telling me about a boxing padre in Hull in days gone by, but his name escapes me, as things tend to do, the morning after.