Historical Man

This is the last BLOG post I'll make on the Isle of Man because I'm running well behind time. Since departing the island I've been to Plymouth and then to the Peak District in northern England for about four days. After that, I spent four nights in Oxford to attend the 4th World Conference on Economic Geography (the first three meetings were in Singapore, Beijing and Seoul and I attended the last of those). Then, after visiting a National Trust Home called Claydon House in Buckinghamshire, I dashed to Heathrow for the last leg of my journey, Believe it or not, I flew in the early evening to Bucharest where a friend is kindly paying my way and, in return, address research students, an official in Romania's regional development ministry, and several rural mayors!! What a hectic life.

OK on with the story. The IoM is a treasure trove of historic properties and we'll visit several in turn actually three in all, Laxey, Cregneash and Rushen Abbey. Laxey is one of the gems of British industrial archaeology. In essence, a water-driven wheel (Lady Isabella) drove pumping mechanisms to keep mines producing lead, copper, silver and zinc in operation until the mines closed finally in 1929. It is the largest such wheel in the world.

 To  get to it, we walked along a street lined with miners' cottages and this memorial to miners.

The day we were there, the wheel was rotating - driven by water - but was nnot driving the pumping mechanism.

The rotating wheel drove a very long rod back and forwards and this, in turn, was converted to a vertical pumping action at its very end.

Water was collected in holding tanks like this from a series of local streams and, the tanks were higher in altitude than the top of the Laxey wheel. So water was then gravity fed to the top of the wheel to keep it rotating.

The site is covered in the ruins of mining operations like those shown here.

 And so to Port Erin in the island's far west. It's an attractive beach-side town.

But the reason for visiting the area was to see Cregneash, a beautiful working heritage village, now controlled by the Manx version of the National Trust. The buildings themselves have been restored and are now home to tableaux portraying village life. One can see homely scenes and workshops, along with samples of livestock produced, mainly chickens and sheep.

Cregneash is remote, pretty wild, and close to the Calf of Man already reported on these pages. Notice also the weather, which behaved for once and gave us warm sunshine. And so to Rushen Abbey, Founded in 1134 by Viking King Olaf 1, this shortly after became a Cistercian Monastery, but was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 16th century. Little now remains apart from the odd tower, a few broken walls and some pleasant gardens. But we did get a feel for the life of the monks, which struck me as pretty dreary given endless and repetitive rituals. You may think differenetly.

AS

IoM From Top to Bottom

On two separate days, Phil and I ascended to the top of the Isle of Man and reached the southern-most tip of the island. Both journeys were highly scenic and worth a quick look. Snaefell is a little over 2000 feet and reached by a historic old electric tram like the one shown here. And the view from the top are fabulous.

Well, to start with, here are views of me and the summit area.

If you've got good eyesight you'll see the Mountains of Mourne on the horizon and they're in northern Ireland. In other directions, one can see the mountains of southern Scotland to the north and of Cumbria (the English Lake District) to the east. So the IoM is right in the middle of the Irish Sea.

This main raod straddles the island is part of the IoM TT races due to be held shortly. I even have added a TT t-shirt to my collection.

The Manx people love metals animals and here's another. I guess it's some kind of mythical sheep.

On the way up and down we passed this mining operation amidst the bare hills of Snaefell.

While the rugged south coast brought brilliant coastal views, the second picture here showing the well-named Calf of Man!

And, as you can see, we had nice weather.

AS

House of Keys - Tynwald

The world's longest continuously serving Parliament - we're talking about 1000 years, Tynwald, met at the House of Keys in Castletown for a long time. The building is now a museum, Tynwald having been shifted to Douglas many years ago when in became the commercial capital.

I though we were simply visiting museum displays, but were in for huge shock. We sat at the parliamentary table facing a speaker's chair which I though contained a dressed up dummy. Far from it. When the clerk of the house arrived in nineteenth century gear, we called to order and told that we would be debating important motions put before the chamber over the centuries and voting on them. Then the dummy came to life is one sense, the face lit up and an image of a face could be seen talking with lips moving appropriately as if a real person. Then the pictures on the wall came to life in turn as key people in history put their arguments before we asked to vote and our score was compared to the decision on the day. It was highly entertaining and very realistic.

So, examine the scenes inside the chamber.

AS

House of Manannan

I've found out why the Isle of Man was named thus. It seems that a mythical sea-god from ancient times was named Manannan. And, in Peel, near the castle there is a museum to Manannan where the history of the island is told in brilliant fashion. The modern building contains many different rooms and each tells the story of a particular epoch or event in succession. That's normal in many museums. What's different is that each room introduces the content with a speech delivered in suave fashion by a marvellous actor dressed up like Manannan. His presence is therefore everywhere. Also, many of the rooms have tableaux where 'people' (i.e. dummies) are shown performing various acts or tasks. Have a walk through with me. The photos are in the order taken, starting with an exterior scene of Vikings arriving and the museum surrounds!

Here's a shot with Manannan the background. Perhaps you recognise the actor.

As