A particular feature of the Great Laxey mines was the hydraulic Man Engine, which was the miners lift. 


Prior to 1881 the men had to walk up and down ladders to get to work on the lower levels. With journeys taking an hour each way, or a quarter of their shift. The Man Rods, baulks of metal-reinforced timber with small, standing room only, platforms attached at regular intervals were installed in the partitioned Welsh Shaft. 


The shaft followed the lode so that it was about 10-15 degrees off vertical and the rods were supported on rollers. The Man Engine was a two-foot diameter piston with twelve foot stroke which lifted the rods this height. Platforms were fixed at twelve foot intervals on the shaft, one side being used up to go up, the other to go down. 


When the engine was working a head of some two hundred foot of water drove the piston up vertically. It fell under its own weight. The Engine continued to work until 1919 and its remains are preserved in situ.


The men were carried up and down by stepping from the platforms on the rods onto the the fixed platforms in the shaft. Any one rod platform only travelled between two of the fixed ones. To go down from a level a miner stepped onto a rod platform when the piston reached the top of the stroke. He rode it down and stepped off onto a fixed platform when the bottom of the stroke was reached. He stepped onto the next rod platform when it was lifted level with him and rode on down to the next fixed platform.