Trip to the Isle of Man in 1802

Introduction

The following is extracted from a small notebook held at Manx Museum as MS 05875 where catalogued as "A tour of a lady's vist from England to Ireland". The lady is not identified and the Manx material occupies but a few pages. The mention of the partial lunar eclipse dates the voyage to the Island as being over the late evening of the 11th September 1802 with arrival in Douglas on the Sunday morning of the 12th.

The departure would appear to be later in that week, possibly the Thursday, but meanwhile the small party would appear to have visited the four towns.

I have in a few places split the text into paragraphs to ease reading

Text

Having embarked in a collier, we had a very pleasant sail, in a beautiful moonlight night, with a brisk gale of wind. In the early part of the night the moon was three fourths eclipsed, and was seen to great advantage from the sea, there not being the least cloud to intercept the view. At seven o'clock in the morning the mountains in the Isle of Man were seen very distictly, owing to the clearness of the atmosphere. As we coasted along, the land did not appear very fertile nor plentifully inhabited, but seemed composed entirely of high mountains some of the summits being enveloped in mists.

In the forenoon we landed at Douglas which is a small town containing a few narrow streets and not many good houses the harbour is small though the best in the Island and they have a short pier built with stone and a handsome lighthouse at the extremity pricipally for the use of the fishing boats.

Since smuggling has been abolished, the inhabitants persue the herring fishery with great advantage and furnish England with herrings of a superior quality to those caught in many parts on the Scotch coast, and inferior to no herrings whatever. The boats are 25 and 30 feet keel with one mast, without a deck. Seven fishermen generally hire the boat by giving the owner 2 shares of herrings out of 9 and if they hire the nets also, they pay one share more, the nets are in seven pieces and each fisherman generally possesses one piece which is 40 or 48 yards long and 16 yards wide the meshes a little more than an inch square, the several pieces are joined together and one end is put into the sea, on one edge of the net are fixed skins inflated with wind which prevented it from sinking, the boat is directed in a straight course while the fishermen are putting out the net the lower part being kept down by stones. The net is preserved in as straight a line as possible and the herrings are caught by endeavouring to push their bodies through the meshes and are not able to get through or return. As the herrings are generally of one size in particular places, very few escape by the meshes being too large or too small. One boat has been known to take 150 barrels of herrings in a night, each barrel containing about 600. The price of fresh herrings have been this year from 1s 6d to 3s 10d per hundred of six score.

The boats are made with deal on an excellent construction, and cost £100 and the nets £50. Owing to the clearness of the sea, they can only fish in the night and in the morning they go into a harbour to sell or salt the fish which they have caught, some of the fish are salted and immediately stored in barrels just in the state they are caught and others have the entrails taken out before they are salted, those that are intended to be smoked are salted and stored in large bodies, and after the salt has penetrated and the brine has been drained off, they are fastened by the head to rods, like candles, so are not to touch each other. They are afterwards hung up in a house upon horizontal bars of wood, distant from each other a little more than the length of a herring, from within eight feet of the floor to the roof, and wood is kept burning on the floor till the herrings are perfectly cured.

The road from Douglas to Peel is excellent and the country mountainous with fertile valleys. but the agriculture is at present carried on in a wretched manner owing perhaps to the poverty and idleness of the landlords - We saw in a field near the road, a landlord without shoes or stockings, and covered with rags, standing indolently near two mowers, who he had employed to mow a field of two acres. If the island contains many such farmers as this, it is not surprising that the land should be in a bad state of tillage and that the land should seldom be fallowed, we only saw one field in the whole Island that had the least appearance of a fallow. The attention of the inhabitants is pricipally occupied in the summer months with the herring fishery which makes labourers scarce in the harvest.

Peel is built upon the coast and contains a few houses place in such a straggling manner that there is only one part which can be called a street. As this is the only harbour on the West coast it is much frequented by the fishermen. Within fifty yards of Peel is a small Island which is covered with the ruins of an extensive castle which formerly has sustained many a siege from the contending parties the oak folding door at the entrance still remains and is very sound but all the rooms within are fallen down and a fine green turf covers the spot which formerly sustained the Danish banqueting rooms since the decay of these buildings part has been converted into a chapel, but even this has shared the general wreck and is now entirely deserted, as are also two or three houses adjoining the chapel. There were some modern tombstones, which shows it to have been a place used for internments, This Island is joined to the Isle of Man by a wall which protects the harbour from the south and the Island being opposite the mouth of the river, protects it from the West winds.

The road to Ramsey is not so good nor so level as to Douglas, as we had to pass over several steep hills till within five or six miles of Ramsey where the country is level many miles, towards the North. This is the richest view in the Island, as here are seen fertile pastures inclosed with flourishing hedges and a few orchards which were loaded with fruit. Although corn is grown in great quantities and the mountains are ploughed nearly to their summits. Yet the country seems better adapted for rearing cattle, as the frequent showers keep up a perpetual verdure, but at the same time, is very injurious to the ripening corn and frequently keeps it so soft, that it cannot be ground without being dried in a kiln.

Ramsey is a small town with few houses except cottages and has a very small harbour, which prevents it from being frequented by the fishermen so much as Douglas or Peel. On one side of the town is built a town hall in which will be a court of justice when finished.

The road to Douglas passes over many steep hills and is in many places impassable for carriages. On the left we had the sea generally within a quarter of a mile, but at Laxey which contains half a dozen straggling houses with a small stream in the valley, we approached much nearer and after having many entensive views upon the sea, we arrived at Douglas. Before our arrival we passed by the Duke of Athol's house which he is building at the foot of a hill and just beyond high water mark. it is surpising that such a situation should be chosen, when by building the house a few hundred yards back there would have been a fine lawn in front and a more extensive prospect, as it is it is necessary to build a wall in imitation of a fort to break the violence of the waves.

On the following day we went to Castle Town, and on the road saw many pretty valleys, but the whole Island is very deficient in wood, otherwise it would be extremely beautiful and would no doubt be much frequented by men of fortune. At present, it seems to be inhabited by gentlemen in low circumstances in general, as an inhabitant is not subject to the debts he may have contracted in England and when here, has very few taxes to pay, even less than in Ireland, and at the same time may trade to any of the British settlements that do not belong to the East India company. These advantages together with the lowness of the price of labour and frequent streams of water, must make this Island an excellent situation for carrying on any manufactory. At present, almost every thing is imported except provisions.

Castle Town is built much like the other places on this Island except the market place, which is open, and contains many good houses; Adjoining the market stands a castle consisting of a square tower surrounded by a wall within a few yards distance. On the inside of the wall is a parade raised many feet above the surface of the ground where formerly the sentinels were placed. Under the entrance into the tower is a pit, with a draw bridge over, and overhead hangs a portcullis - the interior of the castle is entirely in ruins, however the stone staircase being firm, we got safe to the top and found that the roof in many places had been taken away and also the floors of several chambers. Upon examining the rooms we found no fire places except one which belonged to the kitchen. Nor is it surprising that fire places should have been omitted in ancient castles for if we judge from the thickness of the walls and smallness of the windows, the temperature of the air within, must remain in nearly the same degree of heat winter and summer, as is experienced in a dry cellar - consequently one of these rooms would be warm in winter and cool in summer, when compared to the external atmosphere.

The Governor resides in a house adjoining the castle which makes this town the seat of Government though Douglas is the principal place. The land forms a bay but it is too shallow and open to the sea, to be of use to vessels.

Having made a tour of the Island we returned to Douglas near which place we saw a new water mill capable of turning four pairs of stones - about six miles on the road to Peel is a horizontal water-mill - the wheel was about six feet dia: and had eight spokes which were inclined 45 degrees the length of a foot, at the extremity of each spoke was hollowed out, like a spoon, the aperture for the water being higher than the wheel, it fell against the hollowed part and by its force turns the mill. An upright spindle from the water wheel is fixt at the upper extremity to one of the mill stones, which is turned with the same velocity as the wheel - the water wheel ought to have been made with such a number of spokes that each might project a little over the other, so that none of the force of the water could be lost.

A Packet being ready to sail we went abord, and arrived the next morning at Whitehaven. ...

Notes

The Manks Advertiser dated Saturday 11th September 1802 stated that 'it blew a violent gale yesterday and last night' so the 'brisk gale' was the remnant of that presumeably the author was a good sailor not to note it any further. The following issue noted the arrival of the packet on Thursday 16th - whether it returned to Whitehaven later that day or on Friday is not mentioned though it returned to Douglas the following Thursday.

The most likely sailing course from Dublin would be north east then to come along the coast of the Island after passing Langness with its dangerous rocks, before coming into Douglas from the south - this would be mostly along the cliffs, which on the landward side provided the route for the Marine drive and Electric railway - a route that would certainly show little evidence of cultivation.

Colliers were generally small vessels, certainly not suited for passengers especially 'ladies', so the party may have been just two as it would be extremely unusual for a single woman to come alone, the term 'we' is always used - unless they walked they would have to have hired transport in form of horses, though, for example, Ely Shaw in Douglas was offering to hire horses and provide accomodation from mid 1802, he only started to advertise a gig for hire from July 1803. Strangers arriving from Ireland were noted by the authorities at this period and needed to bring some 'passport' from the Irish authorities.

What is unusual in this period is for a woman to be interested in mechanical devices - the absence of any description of accomodation used is also interesting.

The new water-mill was probably the Nunnery mill which was rebuilt in 1796; the horizontal mill matches that described by Bishop Wilson and although Feltham in his tour makes special mention of these mills he does not mention one so far along the Peel road - six miles from Douglas could be Rock adjacent to St Trinian's Chapel, visible from the road, which might well have been the draw for the visitor.