A comprehensive edition of the correspondence and papers of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, and his brother George Grenville, covering 1712 onwards with particular emphasis on 1752-1770. Includes biographical preface by editor William James Smith, letters, diaries, and parliamentary records. George Grenville's role as First Lord of the Treasury and his authorship of the American Stamp Act feature prominently, alongside detailed accounts of his character and political influence during George III's reign.
A published collection of primary source correspondence from 1762–1764, edited by William James Smith from manuscripts formerly at Stowe. Contains letters between George Grenville (First Lord of the Treasury), Richard Grenville (Earl Temple), John Wilkes, and contemporaries on peace negotiations, ministerial politics, and parliamentary affairs. Includes Grenville's diary of 'Memorable Transactions' covering the period November 1763–January 1764, documenting Cabinet affairs, the Wilkes controversy, and administrative detail.
A published collection of diplomatic and political correspondence from the Grenville family papers, covering 1762-1764 during the post-Seven Years War era and the early reign of George III. Includes letters from George Grenville (First Lord of the Treasury), Richard Temple Earl Temple, John Wilkes, Lord Halifax, Lord Bute, and other key political figures of the period. Directly relevant for understanding Westminster politics, ministerial relations, and revenue/fiscal policy affecting the American colonies and East India Company interests.
Published collection of correspondence and diary entries of George Grenville and his brother Richard Temple (Earl Temple) covering 1765-1766, with editorial notes by William James Smith. Includes extensive political correspondence on Parliamentary matters, ministerial appointments, the Regency Bill, American affairs (Stamp Act, quartering soldiers), East India Company matters, and notably contains references to the Duke of Atholl and the Purchase of the Isle of Man (March 5, 1765).
The third volume of a four-volume published collection of correspondence between Richard Grenville (Earl Temple) and George Grenville, along with letters from their friends and contemporaries. This volume covers 1765–1766 and includes extensive correspondence on parliamentary business, ministerial crises, the Stamp Act crisis in America, East India Company affairs, and notably includes a letter dated March 5, 1765 from George Grenville to the King on the purchase of the Isle of Man from the Duke of Atholl. The collection includes Grenville's personal diary of memorable transactions.
Volume IV of a four-volume published collection of correspondence between Richard Grenville (Earl Temple) and George Grenville, their friends and contemporaries. The text shown is a table of contents and index covering 1767-1768, documenting political negotiations, ministerial changes, East India Company affairs, American colonial issues, and figures including Lord Chatham, the Duke of Grafton, and John Wilkes. Valuable for understanding high-level political context during the Revestment period.
Published collection of correspondence from the Grenville family and contemporaries, spanning 1712 onwards, with focus on the final years of George II and first decade of George III. Editor's preface provides extensive biographical and political context for Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, and George Grenville, including their roles in Pitt's administration, the American Stamp Act, and political opposition to Lord Bute. Contains original manuscript letters formerly preserved at Stowe.
Volume IV of a four-volume published collection of correspondence and papers of the Grenville family, covering 1767-1768. Contains letters between Richard Grenville (Earl Temple), George Grenville, and their political contemporaries discussing Parliamentary business, political negotiations, American affairs, the East India Company, and Wilkes affair. Directly relevant to understanding Westminster politics during the Revestment period and the broader constitutional and commercial context.
Modern horsewalk.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1869 shows a horsewalk at this location. The horsewalk, and the barn to which it is attached, are both intact, and form part of the Grove Museum operated by Manx National Heritage.
The long wooden beam is designed for operation by two horses, and the entire mechanism, including the mill inside the barn, is intact.
The findspot of a Mesolithic flint scatter found in a marl pit in the corner of the field. It consists of worked flints, blades, flakes and waste of Heavy-blade or Bann type.
The findspot of a Viking sword and the fragments of a shield. Following the recovery of a part of an iron sword blade from a building site near Ramsey, A.M. Cubbon excavated the hilt and upper part of a Viking sword and shield mountings, with no associated grave. The finds were deposited in the Manx Museum.
The headright system was the primary mechanism for acquiring land in colonial Virginia from 1618 until approximately 1700. Under the system, any person who paid the cost of transporting an emigrant to the colony received fifty acres of land. A settler who paid his own passage received one headright; a wealthy planter who paid for the passage of labourers, servants, or family members received fifty acres per person transported. The system was designed to solve the colony's chronic labour shortage while simultaneously distributing land. Headright records are among the most important sources for early colonial immigration, because they name the people transported. In the absence of passenger manifests, which were not systematically kept before the nineteenth century, headright patents often provide the only evidence that a named individual arrived in Virginia. When a 'Richard Christian' appears as a headright in Captain Samuel Mathews's 1643 Rappahannock patent, or a 'Thomas Christian' patents land independently on the Chickahominy in 1657, these headright entries are the colonial record of their arrival. The system produced a society of large landowners and working poor. A planter who imported sixty labourers could claim three thousand acres. The land was free, but the annual quitrent to the Crown was not, and the land had to be settled and cultivated within three years or the patent lapsed.
The herring fishery was the lifeblood of the coastal parishes. The season brought its own customs and superstitions: boats were blessed before launching, certain words were never spoken at sea, and the first herring of the season was treated with ritual significance. The fishing communities at Peel, Port St Mary, and Port Erin lived by the herring, and the decline of the fishery after the Revestment was one of the economic catastrophes that drove emigration. The customs survived as long as the fishery did, and some persisted in memory long after the last herring boats were hauled up.
A comprehensive genealogical and historical work on the House of Stanley from the Norman Conquest to 1776, with extensive coverage of the Isle of Man's history, society, manners, and economy. Includes primary source documents (letters, proclamations, petitions) and contemporary observations on Manx herring fishing, agriculture, revenue, laws, and social conditions. Directly relevant to the Revestment project for its treatment of Stanley family governance, the administrative transition, and Manx economic and social conditions in the post-Revestment period.
Over twelve hundred wells and springs were recorded on the first Ordnance Survey maps in the 1860s. The holy wells among them were still visited. Moore records the practice: the devotees would drop a small coin into the well, drink of the water, repeat a prayer mentioning their ailments, and then decorate the well or the tree overhanging it with flowers and votive offerings, usually rags. They believed that when the rags rotted, their ailments would be cured. These rites were observed within living memory when Moore was writing in 1891.
The wells were usually found near old ecclesiastical sites. The early recluses built their keeills near springs, constructing wells for their own use and for baptising converts. The wells predated the keeills, and the keeills settled beside them. Christianity did not create the holy wells. It moved in next door.
Chibbyr Lansh, on Gob-y-Vollee, consisted of three pools and was resorted to for the cure of sore eyes. The cure required the patient to come on Sunday, walk three times round each pool, and say in Manx: Ayns enym yn Ayr, as y Vac, as y Spyrryd Noo — "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" — then apply the water. A Christian prayer at a pre-Christian well, and nobody saw a contradiction.
Gill, writing in 1929, placed the wells in a deeper framework: "Very ancient beliefs that both the Kingdom of the Dead and the Fairy Kingdom, two spheres which extensively intersect, were reached by a water-transit — a sea-strait, a lake or river, and sometimes a well." The wells were thresholds to the Otherworld. Lough Corrib, he noted, was said to have issued from the burial-place of Manannán mac Lir.
Chibbyr Hidee, the Tide Well in the courtyard of Castle Rushen, was said to rise and fall with the tide. A magical cause was attributed to it, though the well sits close enough to the harbour that a natural explanation exists. Two tidal wells on the Island carried supernatural associations — Chibbyr Hidee and Ballig Well at Conchan.
The seasonal visiting of wells on hilltops took place on the first Sunday in August. Springs on South Barrule, Slieu Dhoo, Slieu Curn, Snaefell, and Maughold Head were all visited. The scenes at Maughold were described as "essentially non-Christian." The Church denounced the annual ascent of Snaefell, but the people went anyway. Gill connects these August pilgrimages to the same tradition as the Midsummer rush tribute on South Barrule, noting that the two customs represent "two ancient and concurrent systems of year-division."
Forget Halloween — Hop-tu-Naa is older.
The last night of October was the Manx New Year’s Eve, the night when the old year died and the dead walked abroad. Bonfires burned on the hills. Children carried turnip lanterns from house to house, singing the Hop-tu-Naa song.
Not pumpkins — turnips. Carving a turnip is harder work than a pumpkin, which is part of the point.
This activity guides you through making a traditional Hop-tu-Naa lantern from a turnip (or a swede if you can’t find a big enough turnip), with the words of the song to learn.
Best done in late October, obviously — but there’s nothing stopping you practising in July.
The song sung by children on Hop-tu-Naa (31 October) as they carry carved turnips door to door. One of the oldest surviving calendar songs in the Celtic tradition, marking the last night of the old Manx year.
An excerpt from Draper's 1864 historical work on the House of Stanley, focusing on James, Tenth Earl of Derby (d. 1735-6) and tracing the descent of Isle of Man sovereignty through the Stanley and Athol families. Includes detailed account of the 1765 Parliamentary purchase of the island by the Crown from the Duke of Athol for £70,000, with reserved land rights and annual payments, and subsequent sales in 1806 and 1826.
Neolithic worked flints, including arrowheads, localised only to The Howe (historically centred at the grid reference given). The precise findspot - or findspots - are unknown.
'The Hump' is a Bronze Age bowl barrow which is located in a field about 300 metres north of Ballaleece House. It is ditchless, and is now fern and grass-covered, and has been used as a site for depositing stones lifted during field clearance. The barrow has a diameter of 15.0 metres and an average height of 1.7 metres.
Excavations were undertaken on the barrow by Fleure in 1937, revealing a short cist in the centre of a well-constructed cairn. The body of the cairn consisted of alternating layers of stones and sand. The cist contained no relics but was apparently undisturbed. A fine example of a flint blade with several serrated concave notches was found in the material of the mound.
Benjamin Franklin's 1760 pamphlet arguing for retention of Canada and Guadeloupe in peace negotiations following the Seven Years' War. Addresses colonial security, frontier defence against French-backed Indians, and long-term strategic interests in North America. Includes observations on population growth and governance of colonies.
