Staarvey Road

A Scottish walk?

 

Monday 15th July, 2013

 

The Sunday email read "We think a start from St John's car park and a Staavey Rd, ruin walk to the Switchback and back." 

 

It was still reasonably cool when we met at Tynwald Mills just before nine - but it promised to be another hot day so we set off quickly hoping to climb the hill up to the Staarvey Road before the sun got too high in the sky.  This summer has been totally different from last year.  There has been no rain so far this month and the five day forecast threatens more dry weather and even hotter days. 

 

"The Staarvey Road" illustrates the rather casual approach to language and spelling on the Island . . . being a mixture of Manx and English.  It really should be The Road of the Shallow Ford - or the Bayr ny Staarvey.  Variations in spelling date back a long time - to when the Manx language was rarely written and most of the population were illiterate.  The English officials must have battled to transfer the strange sounding Manx words to paper before the first dictionary was published in 1835.   By the way,  I am not sure where the shallow ford used to be - the stream probably runs through a drain under the road now.

 

We turned off the road at Staarvey farm and headed along the right of way, which follows the edges of the fields, until we reached the first ruin.  Tim took this photo of the remains of the farmhouse nestling in the dense shade of an overhanging ash tree.

There were also  the remains of farm buildings and an old horse mill.  I am always impressed by the way the old builders were concerned with the beauty of their buildings.  The stone mason who worked on this old barn must have taken a pride in his work and interspersed the the grey Manx slate with blocks of white quartz.

 

The last time we walked this way we were wading through mud and taking care to avoid the herd of cows (one of which Trevor thought might be a bull).  On Monday the cows looked very placid in the heat - even though they had calves in the field with them.  It was rather nice to see that there are still some traditional farms where the animals enjoy a more or less natural existence.

My attention was attracted to this patch of creeping thistles (Cirsium arvense) when I saw a small tortoiseshell butterfly.  But my luck wasn't in and the butterfly flew off before I got it in focus.  

So I am going to cheat a bit - taking my cue from the cookery shows where they put a cake in an oven . . . and then whip out another while proudly announcing "And here is one I made earlier!"  Here is one I took earlier!  A small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) in our garden on Sunday afternoon.

We approached the second ruin along the edge of field of oats.  Nearly all the cereal crops that we saw during the walk were oats - and they were growing very well.  Perhaps the other cereals need a longer growing season and oats were planted because of the snow at the end of winter and the late onset of spring.

 

On the bank above the old farm buildings we saw some harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) - the first of the season.  They are called bluebells in Scotland.  I had heard that before, but when I read about them again I discovered something new . . . that the Scots call the English bluebells wild hyacinths!   The harebells were much bluer in real life than they appear to be in the photo - and they had been chomped by something.  I thought of substituting a harebell photo from last summer but resisted the temptation.  This is not a good photo but at least it is authentic.

At the edge of the next field of oats we passed some spear thistles (Cirsium vulgare) - also known as Scottish thistles.  The walk seemed to be taking on a Scottish theme with oats and thistles and Scottish bluebells.

Just before we reached the stile into the lane down to the Switchback Road, we had a good view of Peel and St Patrick's Isle.  Peel always looks as though it is posing for postcard photographs.  In the fields you can see that this has been a good summer for haymaking.  The hay has already been mowed, dried and baled and the fields are greening again.  And it is only half way through July.

Opposite the stile there was a gate and some rather impressive cows.  We asked them if they felt silly wearing yellow earrings.  I suppose the ear tags are less cruel than branding.  It can't be too painful because most girls (and some boys) seem to get their ears pierced voluntarily.

 

We walked down the stony lane towards the Switchback Road and were joined by some flies.  I wasn't sure whether they were just ordinary annoying flies or the more sinister clegs - another less welcome addition to the Scottish theme.  I had already been bitten once up at the second ruin.  Although Scotland is renowned for midges and clegs, the Island isn't doing too badly either this summer.  For those of you lucky enough not to have encountered either of these little pests I should explain.  Midges are tiny biting flies - about 1mm long - rather like microscopic mosquitoes.  You don't feel them bite but the bites itch.  According to the internet, a cleg is a "large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals" - and we were painfully aware that hikers are included in "various animals".  Their name is derived from an Old Norse word kleggi - so they must have been around when the Vikings invaded and probably for a very long time before that.  They are also called horseflies.  Clegs are sneaky.  They approach silently and you often don't notice them until you feel the painful bite.

 

We crossed the Switchback Road at Lherghydoo farm and walked down the road towards the old railway line.  I had always thought that bush vetch was more common than its more colourful relation the tufted vetch - but tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) seemed to be dominant in this part of the Island.

 There are no steps down to the railway line from this bridge so we had to scramble down a steep bank, overgrown with brambles and nettles.  It adds a bit of excitement to the walk but always reminds me of a walk when Sarah was with us.  She flatly refused to climb down the bank - saying that her silk petticoat would be ruined!  I had to walk down the road with her and we joined up with the others later.

The centre of the railway cutting had been strimmed which was just as well because the bracken and hogweed at the sides were taller than us.

 

The warm sheltered path was unfortunately an ideal environment for the clegs which pursued us down the footpath with great enthusiasm.  They weren't too bad if we kept moving fast but they targeted me every time I stopped to take a photo.  But I couldn't miss the chance to record this interesting example of recycling.  There was an old gate here which has recently been replaced but the old device for keeping the gate closed has been preserved!  The horse shoe is hinged so that it can be lifted over the bar . . . and it must have belonged to a horse with very large hooves.

When we reached another road bridge, we climbed up some civilised steps to the Poortown Road and then walked up the road before turning into the lane which crosses the River Neb and leads back towards Tynwald Mills.  I was interested in identifying a cottage garden on the banks of the Neb which is described by Richard Adams (who wrote Watership Down) in his Nature Diary.  He wrote the diary while he was living on the Island and it was published in 1985.  Unfortunately the cottage garden seems to have disappeared - maybe under the new garage block built alongside this cottage.  The cottage has been renovated recently and the neatly clipped hedges have been allowed to grow so high that the garden is no longer visible from the road.

 

And the last photo is one of Tim's  - a view of Slieau Whallian.