Cregneash is a small crofting village in the southwest of the Isle of Man, about a mile from Port Erin, most of which now forms a living folk museum run by Manx National Heritage, officially opened in 1938. Restored thatched cottages preserve the look and material culture of 19th-century Manx village life, including Victorian-era farming and fishing equipment. Harry Kelly's Cottage demonstrates traditional weaving and blacksmithing, while Edward Faragher's Cottage focuses on Manx-language heritage. External controls on private homes in the village help maintain its historic appearance, and it keeps a flock of the rare, primitive four-horned Loaghtan sheep breed native to the island. St Peter's Church, built in 1878, still holds regular Sunday services for the community.
Crofton, on The Crofts, was built between 1851 and 1861 for John Moore Jeffcott, an advocate who sat as member of the House of Keys for Castletown from 1855 to 1882. Following Jeffcott's financial difficulties the house was sold at auction in 1886 to Doctor John Clague, who is believed to have practised medicine from the property and to have added the rear extension providing a waiting room and surgery. Built of local limestone, the house is notable for its unusual dormers extending below the eaves and its recessed, pilastered entrance porch, and together with neighbouring Elderbank and Westwood it forms part of a recognised architectural group on The Crofts within the Castletown Conservation Area.
Crogga Mill stands within the historic Crogga estate on the Old Castletown Road, an estate long associated with the Quayle family of Mann, who acquired land here from the 1830s onward. One estate history describes the mill site as centuries old, retaining an ancient mill wheel, and the Isle of Man Steam Railway, opened in 1874, runs directly through the grounds of the estate. Beyond this, detailed documentary history specific to the mill building itself is limited in the sources available.
Cronk ny Arrey Laa ('Hill of the Day Watch') is a 437-metre hill in the island's south-west, the second-highest in that part of the Isle of Man after South Barrule, whose steep western face plunges directly into the sea in a dramatic cliff. Its name recalls its use as a Viking-era lookout post watching for raiders approaching by sea; it is also the highest point on the Raad ny Foillan coastal footpath, a stretch Manx National Heritage calls 'amongst the most spectacular to be seen anywhere in the British Isles.' Carnivorous sundew plants grow on its boggy slopes, and nearby lie the ruins of an ancient keeill and burial ground at Lag ny Keeilley, used for burials until around 1800. Local folklore also credits the summit's daybreak light with signalling herring fishermen to shoot their nets (confirmed via Manx Notes and Queries, 1904); a separate tale of a giant hurling standing stones is often linked to this hill but per A.W. Moore's own Folk-lore of the Isle of Man (1891) actually belongs to Balla Keeill Pherick near Colby, a different location with similar terrain.
Cronk ny Merriu ('hill of the dead') is an Iron Age promontory fort overlooking Port Grenaugh near Santon, first defended by a timber stockade and later rebuilt with an earthen rampart, ditch, and raised timber walkway. Norse settlers later reused the site, building a rectangular longhouse as part of a coastal lookout network; excavation in 1950-52 found little evidence of everyday domestic life, suggesting it served primarily a defensive or watch function. No dating evidence was recovered for the longhouse itself, though a halfpenny of Edward I (1280-81) found in the backfill suggests activity continuing after Norse rule ended in 1265. The Norse building's design informed reconstructions at the House of Manannan museum in Peel.
Cronk Sumark is an Iron Age hillfort rising abruptly above Sulby Claddaghs near the entrance to Sulby Glen, with sheer natural defences to the north and west and two encircling banks protecting the more vulnerable south and east slopes. The hill has two summits (the western one truncated by later quarrying) and the inner rampart shows evidence of vitrification, suggesting it was subjected to intense heat at some point in its history.
Cronk y Voddy is the site of Manannan's Chair (Stoyly Manannan or Manachan), a large eroded rampart in the parish of German, on the Staarvey Road between Lhergydhoo and Knocksharry. Within it stands an earthen mound in the form of a seat, from which the legendary Manannan Mac Lir is said to have dispensed the law; a tradition also held that this mythical king of the Island was buried within.
Cronk-ny-Mona is a steep hill on the A18 immediately after Hillberry Corner, around the 36.3-mile point, cresting in a sweeping left-hand bend. It briefly interrupts the long descent off the Mountain before that descent resumes at Signpost Corner just beyond it.
Cronk-y-Berry is a hillside locality in Onchan parish, on the Willaston Circuit route between Willaston Corner and Edge's Corner; its Manx name derives from Scandinavian/Gaelic roots meaning roughly 'hill of the fort/burial mound', and 18th-19th century place-name records list historic spellings such as Knock Berrey and Cronkybury. The coordinate given here (54.172146, -4.483331) is that of Cronk-y-berry Farm as plotted on an OS Second Series six-inch map (grid SC3878) by an old-maps indexing site, and marks the general locality the racing section is named after rather than a surveyed apex of the bend itself, so it should be treated as approximate. The area today includes Cronk-y-Berry School and residential streets off Johnny Watterson's Lane.
Cronk-y-Voddy Straight, from about 10.75 miles, is a very fast but bumpy and undulating stretch of the A3 road. Nearby sections of this road, including around Handley's Corner and the 11th Milestone, saw repair work carried out between 2003 and 2006.
Industrial settlement in Braddan, on the outskirts of Douglas, developed around a nineteenth-century textile works.
A note added to the Manx Society edition of Feltham’s Tour through the Isle of Man described the works at Cronkbourne as having changed considerably from their earlier use. Linen manufacture had ceased, and the factory was instead producing sailcloth and fishing nets using both water and steam power.
The proprietor, William Fine Moore, employed about 200 people. For the workforce he built what the editor called “quite a village” of superior cottages. A schoolroom and accommodation for its mistress were also provided. The schoolroom was licensed for public worship, with a service held there every Sunday evening at half past six and on other occasions.
The same account remarked that the countryside around Tromode and Cronkbourne had been greatly altered since Feltham’s visit and described the valley looking towards the mountains as particularly beautiful.
William Fine Moore also appears in the membership lists of the Manx Society as a member of the House of Keys, resident at Cronkbourne in Braddan.
Industrial settlement in Braddan, on the outskirts of Douglas, developed around a nineteenth-century textile works.
A note added to the Manx Society edition of Feltham’s Tour through the Isle of Man described the works at Cronkbourne as having changed considerably from their earlier use. Linen manufacture had ceased, and the factory was instead producing sailcloth and fishing nets using both water and steam power.
The proprietor, William Fine Moore, employed about 200 people. For the workforce he built what the editor called “quite a village” of superior cottages. A schoolroom and accommodation for its mistress were also provided. The schoolroom was licensed for public worship, with a service held there every Sunday evening at half past six and on other occasions.
The same account remarked that the countryside around Tromode and Cronkbourne had been greatly altered since Feltham’s visit and described the valley looking towards the mountains as particularly beautiful.
William Fine Moore also appears in the membership lists of the Manx Society as a member of the House of Keys, resident at Cronkbourne in Braddan.
Cronkbourne House takes its name from the Manx word "cronk" (hill) combined with the English "bourne" (stream), and was established by James Moore. His son, William Fine Moore, went on to develop the neighbouring Cronkbourne Village in the 1840s as housing for workers at his nearby flax mill, and lived at Cronkbourne House overlooking the community he was building. The scheme is thought to have been the only model industrial village of its kind on the Isle of Man outside the mining industry, and predates better-known English examples such as Port Sunlight, Bournville and Saltaire.
Cronkbourne Village, near Tromode just outside Douglas, was developed in the 1840s by William Fine Moore to house workers at his nearby flax mill, with Moore himself living at Cronkbourne House overlooking the settlement. Its name blends the Manx 'cronk' (hill) with the English 'bourne' (stream), reflecting its position by the River Glass. The terrace of workers' cottages included several different house types, and the celebrated Arts and Crafts designer Archibald Knox was born in the village in 1864, his father having moved to the Island from Scotland to work at Tromode. The village survives today as a rare and largely intact example of planned Victorian industrial housing on the Island.
Crosby Crossroads, at about 4.8 miles, marks the course's passage through the village of Crosby, home to roughly 900 people. It is a straightforward place-name point rather than the site of any documented racing incident.
Crosby Jump sits at the 5-mile marker from the Grandstand, right where the course leaves the village of Crosby at one of the highest points on its westward run. The spot hosted an official TT Fanzone in 2012, making it one of the rare named points on this stretch with a specific event tied to it.
No additional information could be verified for Cross Fourways beyond its name and position on the Billown Circuit. It does not appear in Wikipedia's detailed article on the circuit (which covers the course's other named corners and their racing history), and no other reachable source described it individually.
Cruickshank's Corner is a right-hand curve on the A18 Queen's Pier Road, at the multi-junction where the A18 becomes May Hill, slightly uphill as the course leaves the residential outskirts of Ramsey. No verifiable source could be found explaining who 'Cruickshank' was or giving a separate coordinate for the point beyond its description as this A18/May Hill junction; none should be invented.
Historic county on the English side of the Irish Sea, with longstanding ecclesiastical, commercial and family connections to the Isle of Man.
The Cumberland coast lay directly across the sea from Mann. Whitehaven became one of the principal English markets for Manx produce and one of the ports most affected by the eighteenth-century running trade.
Cumberland also entered Manx ecclesiastical landholding. The Barony of the Hough in Maughold, later held by the Christians of Milntown, was described in Manx constitutional material as having formerly belonged to the Priory of St Bees in Cumberland. The barony contained about 420 acres and remained an unusual freehold jurisdiction within the Island.
The Christian family itself developed connections on both sides of the sea, including the branch established at Ewanrigg in Cumberland.
The county's coastline appears repeatedly in the debates over Manx smuggling before Revestment. During parliamentary discussion of the purchase of the Island, the Duke of Atholl attacked a customs memorial which blamed Mann for illicit trade on the surrounding coasts. He drew attention to the Solway Firth and the “flat shores of Cumberland and Lancashire”, asking rhetorically whether he was responsible for their geography as well as for the position of his Island.
Whitehaven merchants had already petitioned government about Manx tobacco and other smuggling, making the Cumberland coast one of the principal points at which the running trade met the British customs system. Their 1752 memorial complained particularly that tobacco manufactured on Mann was being carried clandestinely into Ireland and that the same smuggling fleets interfered with the coal trade from Whitehaven and neighbouring ports to Dublin.
The Custom House on Crown Street, Peel, was registered as a protected building on 7 July 2021. No further verifiable history of its construction or use as a civic building was found.
After the finish line, the deceleration lane runs into a hairpin turn-around loop in Nobles Park, leading riders back to the winners' enclosure and parc ferme within the paddock complex used by all race finishers.
Delapré Abbey is a neo-classical mansion in Northampton, England, incorporating the remains of a Cluniac nunnery founded around 1145. Its grounds saw the Battle of Northampton in 1460 during the Wars of the Roses, and the body of Eleanor of Castile rested here in December 1290 on its journey from Lincoln to Westminster. The abbey surrendered to the Crown at the Dissolution in 1538. (Added as a stand-in to test the proximity feature while off-island; safe to delete afterwards.)
Small fortification in the Isle of Man associated with the pre-Revestment garrison establishment.
The office of Commander of Derby Fort appears in the evidence of John Quayle to the Commissioners of Inquiry in 1791. Quayle stated that for several months in 1755 he simultaneously held the offices of Attorney-General, Steward of the Garrisons and Demesnes, Commander of Derby Fort and one of the three officials executing the office of Collector.
The command itself involved very little work. Quayle told the Commissioners that the command of Derby Fort was “almost a sinecure” and carried a salary of £8 Manx currency.
Responsibility for the fort sat within the wider office of Steward of the Garrisons. The Steward directed repairs to the Lord’s houses, forts and castles, provided entertainment at the castle on particular days, supplied ammunition to the garrisons and forts, and supervised carriage services. He received a salary of £8 Manx, while the overseer assisting him received forty shillings.
The offices of Commander of Derby Fort and Steward of the Garrisons ceased at Revestment in 1765. Quayle explained that afterwards a Store Keeper and Overseer of Works was appointed by the Board of Ordnance.
Derby House faces Parliament Square in the heart of old Castletown. Local tradition (recorded on tourism and hospitality sites) links the name to accommodation built on the site for the Lords of Mann, the Earls of Derby, in the 16th century. Manx historian William Henry Cooper's account of the building on this site describes a mid-19th century structure built by tobacco and spirits merchants Robert and John Duff, which later traded as a draper's shop run by Richard Watterson, then became a restaurant and boarding house under John Cannell, and served for a time as Castletown's Post Office before conversion to offices by 1999. The building has more recently been restored as a boutique hotel trading under the Derby House name.
Natural harbour on the southeast coast of the Isle of Man, immediately east of Ronaldsway and Castletown.
Derbyhaven was known in earlier forms as Rainsway or Ronaldsway and served as the principal roadstead for Castletown. Sacheverell described it as "a reasonable good harbour", secured by a fort on a small island dedicated to St Michael.
St Michael's Isle lies at the eastern side of the bay and carried both a chapel and fortification. The harbour and island formed part of the defensive approaches to Castletown, while the broader bay gave vessels more room than the small inner harbour beside Castle Rushen.
The shore around Ronaldsway and Derbyhaven was also the scene of medieval fighting. In 1270 a Scottish force landed there and defeated the Manx. Later accounts give the Manx loss as Ivar and 686 of the chief men of the Island.
Richard de Mandeville and his Irish followers landed at Ronaldsway in 1316 before advancing inland and defeating the Manx near South Barrule.
In 1650 James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, narrowly escaped an attack in the bay. As he returned by boat from visiting a Parliamentary vessel, a gun was fired at him. Colonel Snaid, Colonel Richard Weston and Philip Lucas, the master of the boat, were killed.
Robertson's list of appointed ports in 1776 names Derbyhaven as a port with Castletown harbour, Poolvash, Port le Marie, Port Erin, Fleshwick and Niarbyl as its creeks.