Joseph E. Morris

“ In what has been said we have endeavoured to treat generally of all that is really best worth seeing in Man, dwelling briefly on those topics, whether of history or topography, that seem really of most validity, and passing in silence those aspects of the island—luckily few and often temporary—that appear to the writer not in harmony with its true and permanent charms, and in some cases even repellent. ”

“ From Kirk Maughold we need not return to Ramsey to recover the main road to Douglas. On the contrary, we may proceed through pleasant country lanes that are tiresomely up and down hill and not a little roundabout, and enter the highroad after traversing that very Corna Dale of all of whose sheep Presbyter John, we have seen, was shepherd a thousand years ago or more. North Barrule (1,842 feet) all the way is a lovely peak in front—more shapely, perhaps, and richer in its blending of upland and lowland colour than any other summit in the island. ”

“ Situated on its west coast, at a point sufficiently equidistant from its north and south extremities, and as much out of reach of the corrupting influence of Douglas as any centre well can be in an island of such insignificant dimensions, Peel is not merely an admirable centre from which to make excursions, but in itself is one of the quaintest and most picturesque of little towns. Castletown, in fact, is its only possible Manx rival, and Castletown ranks below it by a very long interval. The inland parts of the town, no doubt, are dull, as new parts of most towns are apt to be everywhere ”

“ Those who prefer a watering-place that is almost wholly watering-place, and not yet spoilt by extravagant building (though the hands that direct its destinies had better call a halt) ; who are content to be included in a definite bay that is bounded by definite cliffs; and who are willing to look westward over unlimited space, in which the sun sinks magnificently in his "ocean-bath," will get what they like at Port Erin. Those, on the other hand, who like to face eastward, and to vary the monotony of the seascape by distant lines of low coast; who dislike to be cooped in a narrow space ”

“ The lane by which we are now travelling, though sufficiently rough-and-tumble, is one over which it is possible to push a bicycle; the writer himself has done it. It is not, in fact, the least strange feature of these Manx hills that they are thus traversed by high-level roads—not actually, indeed, climbing to the tops of the mountains, but winding in and out among them not far below their summits. One of these, between Douglas and Ramsey, and immediately under the shadow of Snaefell itself, has been engineered, I fancy, of quite recent years. ”

“ Ballaugh old church at any rate is picturesque outside; and two other churches in this dull corner of the island—Andreas and Bride—have each at least a brace of ancient crosses. Of these old Manx crosses we hope soon to say something more, when treating of the grand collection on the south side of the graveyard at St. Maughold. Of Manx ecclesiology there is nothing to be said: it is patently without interest or value. Peel Cathedral, we have seen, has a little genuine thirteenth-century work, and Braddon old church, like Jurby, is pleasant enough to look on. ”

“ Whichever route be taken, as we penetrate the hills we realize more and more the real nature of Manx mountains. The central chain of hills extends for about twenty miles from Bradda Head, a sea-cliff (766 feet) , in the south-west, to North Barrule (1,842 feet) , in the north-east, thus forming a true axis to the island. The range is interrupted, not exactly in the middle, but more towards the south, by the great lateral valley that pierces it completely from sea to sea, and through which run road and rail between Peel and Douglas. ”

“ We are now virtually at sea-level, but in the course of the next mile we rise nearly 800 feet. The ascent is by a kind of rocky staircase, in which the bare ribs of the earth have been stripped of their scanty [p. 51] covering of soil. At the top of this, where we join a better lane that comes over Cronk Fedjag, we strike away to the right, over high grass pastures, to the fairly obvious summit of Cronk-ny-Irey-Lhaa: the lane goes down to Port St. Mary (with a turn to the right for Port Erin) , keeping the range of mountain between the sea and itself. ”

“ Those who ignore the fells, and cling to the highroad, may make one or two good deviations. The first of these is to follow the Douglas road as far as Tynwald Hill, and thence turn north towards Kirkmichael by the side of the little River Neb, which flows from the recesses of Glen Helen. This last is one of the best known and most favourite [p. 20] glens in the island, and is really very pretty—more one can hardly claim for it—always provided that we have luck enough to visit it at a time when it is not overrun by hordes of Douglas "trippers." ”

“ These hills are built of slate, like the hills of Cumberland and North Wales, but there all analogy ceases. Snowdon and Scafell Pike are convulsed masses of broken rock, whose black nakedness is not always scantily clothed with a coverlet of bracken, or wiry grass, or sloppy bog-moss. From the foot of the sheer crags extend long acres of scree-shoot, and the hills are further torn in every direction by the deeply furrowed channels of the torrents. In Man the hill slopes are everywhere smooth, and modelled in regular contours ”

“ And what is true of Douglas is perhaps also true, in a modified degree, of Ramsey, and even of Port Erin and Peel. These, of course, are centres from which brakes and char-à-bancs and waggonettes perambulate every corner of the island; even the culminating summit of Snaefell itself is now climbed by a double line of electric railway, and crowned by a huge hotel. "Pretty as the island is," says Mr. Haskett Smith, "its hills are nothing more than hills, except where they are also railways or tea-gardens." Tea-gardens, no doubt, are abundantly in evidence ”

“ One of the picturesque little glens with which the island abounds. It is near Peel, on the western side.
[p. 33]
The truth indeed is this, that this central range of Man, though akin to Westmoreland and Carnarvonshire in its actual make of rock, is altogether aloof from them in all tangible characteristics. This is not to dispraise the hills of Man, but only to rescue them from the ignominy of an obvious, but quite unfair, comparison. Manx mountains, in fact, though thus composed of slate, have really much more resemblance to the limestone hills of Yorkshire. ”

“ John's, where a lane turns up to the left in the direction of Greeba Mill; and thence, climbing on to the moor, to follow the long line of hill-tops over the summits of Greeba Mountain, Slieau Ruy, Lhargey Ruy, Colden, Beinn-y-Phott, Snaefell, Clagh Ouyre, and North Barrule, till we drop again to sea-level at the quays of Ramsey Harbour. To those who love hills, and scrambling over hills, this is probably [p. 19] by far the best walk in the island; but the writer, to be honest, has never had the luck to take it, though he has viewed the chief Manx summits at more or less close quarters. ”

“ The tripper element, again, in the Isle of Man is probably responsible for the absence of the old-fashioned mountain inns—like Wastdale Head, in Cumberland, or Penygwryd, near Snowdon—that form so pleasant a feature among the mountains of England and Wales. There even was once a dancing saloon in the lonely recesses of Injebreck; and no one who [p. 8] loves mountains tolerates dancing in their secret recesses, unless indeed it be the fairies dancing their "ringlets to the whistling wind." ”

“ One night, a fellow being drunk, and by the strength of his liquor rendered more daring than ordinary, laughed at the simplicity of his companions, and, though it was not his turn to go with the keys, would needs take that office upon him to testify his courage. ”

“ It is this peak which is so graceful and conspicuous in distant views of Man, as seen, for example, from the coast of Cumberland, in the neighbourhood of St. Bees. The great highroad, when once accomplished, proves somewhat too hard, and [p. 45] straight, and broad, and white for any except the cyclist; for him it is ideal, supposing him to have spent his morning in wheeling his way with sorrow and pain up the steep rough lanes that rise from Kirkmichael towards Snaefell. ”

“ Most of the apartments are gloomy enough, and one is glad to escape from them back into the sunlight: the great slabs of slate, however, that serve for floor or ceiling—some of them measure 12 feet in length—are surely without parallel elsewhere. The drawing-room, which is the biggest room in the castle, has now an interesting collection of Manx antiquities—e.g., old rushlight-holders, and the ancient Bishop's mace ”

“ They have no pretensions to rank with the best; but, judged by themselves, they are quite satisfactorily noble. We are likely, indeed, to appreciate them all the better, just because we do not approach them in a mood of too exalted expectation. ”

“ The grim Castle with its massive keep overlooks the harbour and is one of the most interesting features of the island.
[p. 49]
A much better road is to take the lane due south from Peel that skirts the head of Glen Maye, and winds up to the pass on the west of South Barrule. This, of course, is a rougher route, and involves much additional hill. Better still for the pedestrian is a composite, roundabout way that follows the grand coast-line more or less closely to Port Erin, and bends thence to the east for Castletown. ”

“ The prospect thus afforded is one of singular distant attractiveness, though the Isle of Man presents no such splendid group of huddled peaks as the Cumberland fells present, in their turn, as seen from the Isle of Man. Only North Barrule, indeed, towards the north end of the island, rises to a distinct and graceful cone.
The Isle of Man has suffered, if we may say so without paradox, from the excess of its own popularity. ”

“ Man is as distinguished for the number and variety of its old crosses as its far away sister, Cornwall. Not that Cornish and Manx crosses have any close affinity—they belong, no doubt, to wholly different schools of ancient Celtic art. Cornish crosses, in particular, like those in Pembrokeshire and Iona, are generally cut more or less to the cross-shape (though it may be only a wheel cross) , whereas those of Man are merely carved in relief on a slab of rectangular slate. "The erect cross-slabs," says the late Mr. ”

“ A little beyond the point where one quits the road to Peel, Greeba Castle is conspicuous on the green hill slope, with the lately repaired ruin of St. Trinian's Chapel, lonely in the fields, on the left just beyond it. This last is now treasured as a public possession; for Man has displayed a solicitude for the protection of its old monuments that England would do well were it tardily to copy. Unhappily it has been found necessary to cut down the graceful ash trees that are said formerly to have sheltered its ruined walls. Greeba Castle, as is well known, is the Manx home of the novelist, Mr. ”

“ Near this is the tomb of Bishop Thomas Wilson (d. 1755) , with an inscription by his son, "Who in obedience to the express Commands of his worthy Father, Declines giving him the Character He so justly Deserved. Let this island speak the Rest." There is a portrait of Bishop Wilson—no doubt sufficiently fanciful—in Mr. Hall Caine's Deemster, where he appears as the good native Bishop. Wilson, however, was really a Cheshireman, having been born at Burton-in-Wirral in 1663; and was educated as a sizar at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a contemporary of the saturnine Jonathan Swift. ”

“ Even the little church, in this case, has some touches of mediaevalism (thirteenth-century lancets) that redeem it from the general charge of Manx ecclesiological dulness. The churchyard in which it stands—like that of Adel, in Yorkshire—is quite disproportionately large, containing, it is said, nearly four acres. For the sake of its church alone, however, no one would come to Kirk Maughold: the magnet that attracts one is the collection of crosses in the churchyard, now studiously protected in a [p. 41] picturesque shelter. ”

“ The Isle of Man, as belonging to the Stanleys, was pertinaciously Royalist in the great Civil War; and hither retired James, the seventh Earl of Derby, on July 30, 1644, after the crushing defeat at Marston Moor on the previous July 2 had finally shattered the cause of the King in the North. ”

“ Derby, however, was lord in Man, and claimed to exercise there peculiar sovereign powers in his own right. Christian was arrested, but refused to plead, and could not thus technically be brought to trial. "The Governor requested the deemsters and the House of Keys to inform him what the laws of the island [p. 58] provided should be done in the case of a prisoner refusing to plead. The reply was that the life and property of the recusant were at the absolute disposal of the lord of the island." ”

“ Mr. W. R. Hall Caine, on the contrary, though he goes into no detail, states roundly that "the Duchess was never a prisoner in Peel Castle" at all—"she never set foot on our island." Who shall decide where doctors disagree? Anyhow, it is extremely unlikely that she was "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" in this narrow vault underneath the cathedral. If Shakespeare may be trusted—but, of course, he is no authority—the lady was to be kept close prisoner, but treated with due respect:
To the Isle of Man ”

“ Not one of the seventeen old parishes is wholly without an example, though Ballaugh, Lezayre, and Patrick have only one each. Kirkmichael, however, has ten; whilst Maughold has actually thirty-seven—by far the biggest collection in the island. Kirk Braddon also exhibits some extremely interesting examples. Most of these cross-slabs are commemorative of the dead; and one of the inscriptions at Kirkmichael (as in Black's Guide to the Isle of Man) may fairly be given as typical of the rest ”