Walk through Castletown today and it’s a quiet, handsome place — a few boats, some gulls, a nice spot for a coffee. In 1760 it was the capital of a commercial operation that smelled of salt, tar, tobacco leaf, and brandy.
This walking guide gives you a map of Castletown with twelve numbered stops. At each stop, read what was happening at that exact spot in the 1760s — the warehouses along the quay, the customs house, Bridge House where the Clerk of the Rolls worked fifty yards from Castle Rushen, the sail lofts and cooperages that kept the trade running.
Can you find all twelve locations? There’s a sketch challenge at each stop: draw what you think it looked like then, next to what it looks like now.
Harbour House, at 7 The Quay, is a Registered Building on Castletown's harbourside, entered on the Protected Buildings Register for its architectural or historic interest. It stands within a five-minute walk of Castletown's cafes and the harbour itself, but no detailed documentary history beyond its registration and present-day use was found.
The Harbour Office on East Quay, Peel, corresponds to the Peel Harbour Master's Office, registered as a protected building on 1 February 2017. No further verifiable history of the building was found.
This building began life as the workshop and engine shed for the Port Erin Breakwater Railway, a 7-foot-gauge line built to haul stone and concrete blocks, each weighing 14 to 17 tons, out to an ambitious outer breakwater authorised under the Isle of Man Harbours Act 1863. The railway used the first steam locomotive ever to run on the Isle of Man, Henry B. Loch, built in Leeds in 1853, and construction of the breakwater continued until 1876 - though a severe storm destroyed the finished structure in 1884 and it was never rebuilt. The former workshop survived this failed project and was later repurposed as the harbourmaster's office and coal shed. It is now on the Isle of Man's Registered Buildings list and currently houses a wine bar and workshop space.
Harold Tower is a Gothic-style castellated mansion built for James Newton, described in 1836 as "recently completed, romantically situated, and commanding a fine view of the bay and town." It stands on grounds that once formed part of the neighbouring Fort Anne estate, and its hexagonal tower design is set off by castellation, ornamental relief around the entrance and distinctive arched openings. Its name is popularly linked to either Harold Harefoot or Harold Godwinson, though this connection is unconfirmed. The artist John Martin, who painted The Plains of Heaven while resident there between 1851 and 1853, is among its notable occupants, and the building was also used as a hotel during the Second World War.
The agricultural customs surrounding the harvest went beyond the calendar observances. The first furrow of the ploughing season was marked. The last sheaf of the harvest, the mheillea, was given ceremonial treatment. Neighbours helped each other bring in the harvest, and the harvest supper was a communal event that bound the farming community together. These customs required no legislation and no institutional support. They were the habits of people who worked the land together and understood that survival depended on cooperation.
Medieval carved stone cross.
The site was investigated by the Manx Archaeological Survey (1915). A carved stone cross (Manx Cross 142) was recovered, re-used in a lintel grave, on the south side of the keeill.
The findspot of a cross-slab with a Celtic cross carved on each face, along with a ship drawing and a Runic inscription. It was found in a lintel grave before 1915. The slab measures 76 centimetres x 30 centimetres x 6.4 centimetres and is kept in the Maughold Cross House.
This broken slab was found in the corner of the north keeill beyond the present parish church where it had been used, already broken, in a lintel grave.
Both faces bore a cross without a circle, most of which is now lost. There is minimal decoration, restricted to a cable-moulded border around the outline of both crosses and a rather inelegant step-pattern on both shafts. Below the right arm on one face is the only sculpted example in the Isle of Man of a Viking ship. The ship is quite well observed, so that the clinker construction of its hull can be seen, together with the standing rigging, the furled sail, and the steering oar. The panel to the left of the cross shaft bears a runic inscription which has been translated as, 'Hedin set this cross to the memory of his daughter Hlif.' A number of other runes have been added as graffiti.
On the other face, a short inscription up the right side of the shaft translates as 'Arni carved these runes.' Additional runes have been lightly scratched in parallel to this inscription as graffiti.
A slab with Celtic cross carved on each face, with ship drawing and Runic inscription. It was found in a North Keeill lintel grave before 1915 and is now kept in the Maughold Cross House. It measures 76 centimetres x 28 centimetres x 6.5 centimetres thick.
Only part of this cross survives, having suffered damage before being placed inside the church in the early 1900s. Each face bears the upper part of a cross without a circle. On one face bands of interlace form triquetra knots in the arms; in the head they split to form interlacing rings. The shaft below the cross is decorated with tendrill pattern, the panel to the left with key-fret, and the damaged panel to the right with an unusual interlace developed from the knotted motifs on the cross. Above the left arm is a female figure with long braided hair and flowing robes reaching towards the cross; she has been interpreted as representing Hyndla, the wise woman who foretells the dreadful day of Ragnarok, although this is open to question. To the right is a disembodied hand gripping either a staff or perhaps a spear.
On the other face the cross shaft bears a double twist interlace which extends into the arms and head before terminating in diagonal, interlaced rings. Another more complicated form of twisted interlace appears in the panel to the right of the shaft, whilst to the left the panel is occupied by a runic inscription. Above the right arm a man in a buttoned tunic and helmet, armed with a sword, holds a horn to his lips; above him flies a bird. This is popularly identified as Heimdall. As foretold by Hyndla, Heimdall blows a great horn to summon the gods to the great conflict at Ragnarok. The remains of the inscription has been translated as, '..his son, but raised another..'
The Heimdall Stone is one of a group of cross slabs dating to the 6th to 12th centuries AD which have been found at or near St Patrick's church, Jurby.
It is a broken slab with cross carved on both faces. One face has figure of Hindla, the other Heimdall and a runic inscription. It measures 76 centimetres by 40.6 centimetres by 5 centimetres. It is kept in the north porch of Jurby Church.
Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844), Speaker, Prime Minister, and afterwards the Home Secretary through whom the Island's business passed.
He was called to the chair of the House of Commons in 1789 on the motion of the Master of the Rolls, carried against Mr Grey's tellers by two hundred and fifteen votes to a hundred and forty-two, and he was re-elected Speaker in 1796. He left the chair in February 1801 to become Prime Minister, and the House voted him its thanks in the strongest terms. He was afterwards created Viscount Sidmouth and introduced to the Lords with the accustomed formalities, his supporters being the Viscounts Wentworth and Sydney.
His Manx significance is the Home Office. As Secretary of State he was the minister to whom the Lieutenant-Governor and the Island's officers wrote, and the calendars of the HO 98 series are full of it. Lord Ellenborough forwarded him a letter from John Christian of Fort Ann wishing to be considered for the Attorney-Generalship in December 1812, and Sidmouth answered privately that it was not possible. Lieutenant-Governor Smelt sent him Deemster Gawne's application to be paid for extra work in 1818, and Gawne wrote to him directly on the same matter. John Cosnahan asked him whether his son John Finch Cosnahan might collect his commission as Deemster. On the customs questions in which the Duke of Atholl had become interested by the Act, Sidmouth's opinion is stated to have concurred pretty nearly with Lord Ellenborough's.
Henry Bloom Noble (18 June 1816 - 2 May 1903) was a wine and spirits merchant who moved to Douglas as a young man and became the wealthiest resident of the Isle of Man by the time of his death. Living unostentatiously despite his fortune, he bequeathed the bulk of his estate to Manx civic causes, funding Noble's Isle of Man Hospital, Noble's Park, Ramsey Cottage Hospital and St Ninian's Church in Douglas; his former residence, Villa Marina, later became a public entertainment venue.
Royal writ from Henry III to the Justices in Ireland confirming the grant of a knight's fee, two hogsheads of wine, and 120 crannocks of corn annually to Reginald, King of Man, in return for homage. Originally granted by King John. This document establishes the feudal relationship and material support between the English Crown and the Manx monarchy in the early 13th century.
Royal writ from Henry III to the Justices in Ireland confirming the grant of a knight's fee, annual provisions (wine and corn), and homage arrangements to Reginald, King of Man. Originally issued by King John, this 1220 confirmation establishes the feudal relationship between the English Crown and the Manx monarchy during the early 13th century.
A royal letter from King Henry III of England granting protection to the lands, goods, and possessions of Olave, King of Mann and the Islands, during his absence in Norway. The document exists in both English and Latin versions and demonstrates the feudal relationship between the English Crown and the Manx monarchy in the 13th century.
A royal letter from Henry III of England protecting the lands, goods, and possessions of Olave, King of Mann and the Islands, during his absence in Norway. The document is presented in both English translation and original Latin (from Foedera), establishing early English-Manx relations and recognising Olave's status as a king under English protection during the 13th century.
Henry IV (1367-1413), King of England from 1399 to 1413, and the king from whom the Stanley lordship of Mann descends.
The Island came to him by forfeiture. William, Earl of Salisbury, had enjoyed it for seven years, and after his death it was sold in Richard II's time to Lord Scrope, who forfeited it to Henry IV by attainder. The King granted it on the nineteenth day of October in the first year of his reign to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, for the term of his life. The Manx chronicle says that Percy was afterwards slain at the battle of Shrewsbury and that the King then gave the Isle of Man to Sir John Stanley, knight, Lieutenant of Ireland.
The Stanley grant is the one that lasted. The charter of 1406 recites the earlier gift to Percy and settles the Island on Sir John Stanley and his heirs, with the patronage of the bishopric, and it stayed in that family for two and a half centuries. The Manx antiquaries mark a change of style within it: Stanley and his heirs were called Kings of Mann until the second Earl Thomas, and Lords only after that.
The grant is the hinge of the Island's constitutional argument. It is the point at which the Island passed under an English title, and modern constitutional writing has used the same grant to argue that the Crown holds Mann as heir of Henry IV rather than by any descent from the Norse kings, with the later lordships of the Percys, the Stanleys and the Murrays subordinate to it.
Henry Nowell, Deputy-Governor and afterwards Governor of the Isle of Man, who ordered the sentence on Illiam Dhone.
He was a younger son of Roger Nowell of Read, by his second wife Catherine Hyde of Hyde and Norbury, and he came in with the Derby interest at the Restoration. The lists of governors show the family holding the Island between them. In 1660 Roger Nowell was Governor with Richard Stephenson as his deputy. In 1663 the deputyship was held by Henry Nowell for one part of the year and Thomas Stanley for the other. From 1664 he was deputy again under Bishop Barrow, and from 1669 he held the government himself until Henry Stanley succeeded him in 1677.
The trial of December 1662 ran through his hands. He was Captain of Castle Rushen and had William Christian in his custody and charge, and it was he, with Hugh Cannell the Lord's Attorney, whom the court sent with a guard of soldiers to require the prisoner to come to the bar and take his trial. When Christian refused, the order that followed bore Nowell's own signature: the court was required and ordered to pronounce sentence in the accustomed form, that he be brought to the place of execution called Hango Hill and there shot to death, that thereupon his life might depart from his body.
London did not let it pass. A warrant to apprehend Henry Nowell, Governor, and others was issued at Whitehall on 18 May 1663, and the Earl of Derby was writing to Secretary Bennet about the business through that May and June.
He was as hard on the Quakers as Chaloner had been. On 15 April 1665 he came to the Castle and read the prisoners an order from the Earl of Derby that they must forthwith be transported into some other land, and a fortnight later two men came by the Deputy-Governor's order to carry it out.
Hango Hill came back into his hands in a better cause. He is one of the attesting witnesses, as Governor, to the grant of the estates of Ballagilley and Hango Hill in Malew parish to trustees for an Academic Students' Fund, out of which King William's College at Castletown afterwards grew. The other witnesses were the Deemsters Richard Stephenson and Thomas Norris.
Henry Pelham (c. 1694-1754) served as Prime Minister from 1743 to 1754. His government considered measures to address the smuggling trade centred on the Isle of Man, laying the groundwork for the Revestment that would follow under his successors.
