Westminster is the seat of the British Parliament in London. It was in the Houses of Parliament at Westminster that the Isle of Man Purchase Act and the Mischief Act were passed in 1765, with the Revestment Bill pushed through both Houses in barely a fortnight - a pace of legislation almost without precedent and described by contemporaries as indecent in its haste.
Parliament paid £70,000 for the Isle of Man in 1765. The Duke’s annual revenue was around £7,500. The estimated annual revenue loss to Britain from smuggling was £200,000. The compensation dispute lasted sixty-three years.
Calculate what £70,000 was worth in 1765 — how many years of a labourer’s wages? How many houses? How many ships?
Calculate Parliament’s return on investment. Calculate the Duke’s total compensation over 63 years.
Then ask the question the Manx people asked: what did they get? The answer is in the book. It’s not a comfortable one.
The cost to Mann was not only in the people it lost but in what those people took with them. The parishes were not just losing population — they were losing the families who had served in the Keys, administered justice in the courts, kept the registers, maintained the chapels, and carried the language. When the Corletts of Orrisdale chartered a ship to Ohio, a family that had farmed that land for generations was uprooting itself. When the Cannells and the Sayles boarded the Ocean, they were carrying the island's religious culture across the Atlantic and leaving a gap in the parishes that could not be filled by people who had not grown up in those parishes, who did not know the names of the fields, who could not speak the language of the wells and the keeills and the calendar customs.
The site of a minor lead mine, shown as a single, working level on the 1869 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map. The level exists today as an earthwork feature, with its modest spoil tip to the western side.
A legal opinion addressing whether Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Man are part of the Dominions of Great Britain and Ireland for purposes of a sixpence per mensem duty on masters and seamen of His Majesty's ships. The query concerns whether the Receiver's power to appoint Deputies extends to these islands.
A legal opinion case concerning the jurisdictional powers of the Court of Chancery of the Isle of Man. The document addresses whether the court has authority to grant commissions for taking affidavits outside its territorial jurisdiction.
The Hill of Day Watch and Port for the Night Watch (Watch & Ward) for Ballaugh parish was located at 'Whetston Hill' according to a document within the Castle Rushen Papers dated to 1627. The location of this hill is not known, but William Cubbon thought that it was on Ballakinnag (SC 340958) just below the old church of Ballaugh. The majority of the Watch and Ward posts may well have been maintained on the same site since the medieval period.
Alleged prehistoric standing stone, alleged medieval chapel and burial ground.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1867-8 marks the site, together with the annotation 'Chapel & Burial Ground (Site of)'.
The Survey's particulars state, 'Well-known in the district as the site of an Ancient Chapel and Burial Ground. The authorities mentioned have frequently seen stone coffins raised, containing a soft matter. The site is marked by a stone, and no vestige of the boundary is visible. Authorities quoted are Mr WH Cubbin, Summerhill; Mr R Killip, Onchan; Mr T Quine, Burnt Mill Hill'.
The Manx Archaeological Survey (1918) subsequently stated that large quartz boulders have given the site the name, 'White Lady', and that graves and traces of cremation had been found, indicating that, as in other instances, the medieval chapel and burial ground had been located on the site of a Bronze Age burial. Kermode (director of the Manx Museum 1922-32) had previously listed the site as pre-Christian, 'Megalithic: stone graves and pottery have been found'.
The standing stone now stands within an area of residential development.
Alleged prehistoric standing stone.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1867-8 marks the site, together with the annotation 'Chapel & Burial Ground (Site of)'.
The Survey's particulars state that the site is marked by a stone. The Manx Archaeological Survey (1918) subsequently stated that large quartz boulders have given the site the name, 'White Lady', and that graves and traces of cremation had been found, indicating that it was the site of a Bronze Age burial. Kermode (director of the Manx Museum 1922-32) had previously listed the site as pre-Christian, 'Megalithic: stone graves and pottery have been found'.
The standing stone now stands within an area of residential development. Alleged prehistoric standing stone, alleged medieval chapel and burial ground.
Medieval chapel.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1867-8 marks the site, together with the annotation 'Chapel & Burial Ground (Site of)'.
The Survey's particulars state, 'Well-known in the district as the site of an Ancient Chapel and Burial Ground. The authorities mentioned have frequently seen stone coffins raised, containing a soft matter. The site is marked by a stone, and no vestige of the boundary is visible. Authorities quoted are Mr WH Cubbin, Summerhill; Mr R Killip, Onchan; Mr T Quine, Burnt Mill Hill'.
The only indication of the site is the standing stone, which now stands within an area of residential development. No archaeological features or remains were reported at the time of construction work.
Medieval burial ground.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1867-8 marks the site, together with the annotation 'Chapel & Burial Ground (Site of)'.
The Survey's particulars state, 'Well-known in the district as the site of an Ancient Chapel and Burial Ground. The authorities mentioned have frequently seen stone coffins raised, containing a soft matter. The site is marked by a stone, and no vestige of the boundary is visible. Authorities quoted are Mr WH Cubbin, Summerhill; Mr R Killip, Onchan; Mr T Quine, Burnt Mill Hill'.
The only indication of the site is the standing stone, which now stands within an area of residential development. No archaeological features or remains were reported at the time of construction work.
The supposed site of an early medieval holy well, close to the site of a keeill at Ballachrink. The well has been described as being a feature built of quartz blocks with an opening 1.5 metres wide.
Its location was described by a Mrs Quayle of Dreemlang but modern surveys have failed to identify a well or spring. A quartz outcrop has been noted at the alleged well site, to the west of which was a sunken passage orientated east-west which measured 2.5 metres long, 0.7 metres wide and 1.2 metres deep. It was lined on the south side with two large quartz blocks with level faces flush to each other and facing north. On the north side of the passage, which is otherwise unlined, is one comparatively small block of quartz. The spoil of a comparatively recent excavation (within the last century) was noted as a series of mounds to the north and south. It may be this excavation which has brought to light the entire feature which is dry and is probably only water-filled during wet periods.
Whitehaven is a port town in Cumberland on the north-west coast of England. It was the base of the Lutwidge merchant family, whose memorial to the Treasury helped bring about the Revestment of 1765, and the home port of the customs sloops that patrolled the Irish Sea enforcing the revenue laws against Manx smuggling.
Whitehaven merchants petitioned Parliament about the Manx trade, complaining that goods entering the Isle of Man at low duty were being re-exported to Britain, undercutting British merchants who paid full rates. The memorial was one of the triggers for Parliament's eventual decision to purchase the Island — the East India Company's commercial interests dressed as a revenue protection measure.
The site of a Bronze Age barrow which was opened in 1888, when intact cremation burials were uncovered. Before excavation the barrow measured almost 12 metres in diameter and was 2.1 metres high, but the excavation led to its removal.
When excavated, a bed of red sand up to 0.75 metres thick was noted at the base of the mound, over which had been lain a layer of quartz, also up to 0.75 metres thick. Above the quartz was a layer of sand which was 0.60 metres thick, within which were found urns, charcoal and flint flakes. Six cremation urns were discovered at a depth of 0.30 to 0.60 metres below the surface and contained, with one exception, burned bones. The urns were from 20cm to 30cm high and were without ornament except for one which had closely set, faintly incised, short haphazard strokes. They were place mouth downwards except for one which lay on its side. The mound was almost entirely excavated but no cist was found.
One of the workmen said that about 40 years previously he helped to remove a larger but similar mound some 75 metres to the north and nearly opposite the vicarage gate. He said that both barrows were similar in construction and that a considerable number of 'Crocks', presumably cremation urns, were found in good condition. He said that some were attached together with wire. No trace remains of either barrow.
A well-defined Bronze Age barrow within the southern corner of a field which has been ploughed for many years. The barrow is sited on the lip of a natural rise and is 17.0 metres diameter with a height of 0.8 metres. It is well-defined on its south and east sides but merges with the natural slopes on the northwest. There are no indications of a ditch. Funerary urns were reportedly found here and the findspot is marked on the 1869 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map, but their present whereabouts are unknown.
A record for a post medieval corn mill. Field parcel 513 on the 1869 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map is a dammed millpond feeding a leat. A building in parcel 511 alongside the pond may have been the mill.
A scatter of over 20 early prehistoric flint waste flakes and worked blades. Dr Larch S. Garrad reported traces of a 'cooking-place' in the same field.
Modern watermill and associated water management.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping of 1869 shows a building at the grid reference provided, adjacent to which is a leat served by a weir and a millpond. Although not annotated as such, the building served as a mill, presumably for processing the agricultural produce of the farm.
Waterpower is supplied by a 160m leat, drawn off from a weir in the stream which passes through the farmstead. Further upstream the watercourse divides, and one tributary is dammed, creating a millpond to store power during summer or times of heavy use. This is located a further 160m upstream from the weir. No tail race is marked on the OS mapping, but such a feature would only need to be of minimal length to re-enter the adjacent stream.
The building is still extant, and while the millpond is drained, its dam still stands.
Modern watermill.
The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping of 1869 shows a building at the grid reference provided, adjacent to which is a leat served by a weir and a millpond. Although not annotated as such, the building served as a mill, presumably for processing the agricultural produce of the farm.
The building is still extant.
