Port Erin

A walk in the south

Part 1 - Port Erin to the Sound

 

Tuesday, 20th August 2013

 

The usual group of four hikers met at Port Erin on Tuesday morning . . . but there was someone else present in our thoughts.   A faithful companion who retired from hiking in May 2012.  The top dog in our little pack.  He may only have been a small dog, but his name was appropriate.  He had the heart of a lion and we miss him.

 

                                                    Leo . . . 20th April, 2000 - 17th August, 2013.  

Winter 2013

Summer 2000.

Spring 2000.

It is a long drive to Port Erin from the glen - judging by Island standards - almost as far as we can go without ending up in the sea between the Island and the Calf.  We had driven down through a dense patch of fog up by Cronk ny Arrey Laa but it lifted fast.  The sun hadn't broken through the high cloud yet when we set out to walk the last couple of miles to the Sound but it promised to be a lovely day.

 

We walked across the beach and around the south side of the bay, stopping briefly while I took a photo of some funny little dogs on the beach . . . 

. . . and Tim took this shot of some boats moored near the jetty.

Then we climbed up the steep steps to the path above the old Marine Biological Station.  The buildings have been empty since 2006 but an application was made in April to convert the derelict buildings into "a marine interpretation centre" and the council has since granted "approval in principle".  I hope the conversion doesn't disturb the herring gulls and jackdaws who frequent the cliffs behind the old buildings.

 

This herring gull was relaxing and preening itself on a rock below our path . . .

 

. . . but this adult gull wasn't having such a peaceful time.  It was being constantly pestered for food by this season's baby, which looks big enough to fend for itself. 

 

 A little further on I noticed a pretty little Devil's-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) growing in the grass by the path.  It was the first time I had seen a Devil's-bit flower this year but not the last as there were more plants further along the path.

The heather was feature of this walk and made a beautiful frame for the view back to Port Erin - looking over the peaceful bay to the misty hills beyond.

We continued climbing the cliff path until it finally descended through the area which always reminds me of that tongue twister about the rugged rock.  It is the roughest part of the path and we had to pick our way carefully around a series of rugged rocks.

After that it was easy walking to the Sound.

 

The small Island between the Isle of Man and the Calf is called Kitterland and is a haven for birds and seals, but the dangerous rocks and the strong currents which flow through the Sound have been the cause of many wrecks in the past.  The small white beacon marks the Thousla Rock. 

 

There is a large white cross on the grassy area overlooking the Sound called "The Thousla Cross".  The inscription reads "To commemorate an act of heroism by men of this parish in their rescue of the crew of the French schooner "Jeane St Charles" in 1858."   The cross was originally placed on Thousla Rock.  It was was moved to the mainland and replaced with the beacon in 1981. 

 

Not all wrecks had  a happy ending.  Five years earlier the wreck of The Lily ended in tragedy.  There is a contemporary newspaper report on this link  http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/iln/n080153.htm

 

Before we left on the next leg of the hike, a couple of inquisitive seals swam across from Kitterland.  This one was watching Trevor who had climbed down on the rocks to take photos of them.

To be continued . . . 

Port Erin

A walk in the south 

Part 2 - The Sound to Port Erin

 

Tuesday 20th August  2013

 

We were reluctant to leave the seals but we still had more than half the walk to complete so we pressed on. 

 

The first interesting place on the next section of the route was Burroo Ned - a headland which was the site of an iron age promontory fort.  I read in the encyclopaedia that there was a large group of huts inside the fort.  Another source just says "Promontory Fort on high ground with rampart to landward, enclosing house foundations. Unexcavated."  And yet another that it " . . . contains of a group of structures, both round and rectangular. At least 40 cup markings in 12 different locations have been found within the the enclosure, and others found on the outcropping rocks in the vicinity."  I have never had time to look for all these features as we usually pass Burroo Ned during a long walk.   We don't like to delay the walk long enough for a thorough investigation.  At a casual glance it just looks like a normal bit of cliff top - with outcrops of rock.  Only the remains of the rampart bank on the landward side can be detected in this photo - just above the grazed field.

The previous photo was taken when we had climbed about half way up the steep side of Spanish head.  On a really tough climb it is a good policy to stop and take photos.  It looks less wimpish than admitting that you are too tired to take another step - but it probably doesn't fool the other hikers.

 

Between Burroo Ned and Spanish Head there is a deep inlet with sheer rocky cliffs on the Spanish Head side.  It was obviously a favourite place for a group of choughs which were doing acrobatic aerial tricks and perching on the rock face.  I tried to get a photo but the results would be of more interest geologists than ornithologists.  Just a few black blurs in front of the rocks.

 

There was a small flock of Loaghtan sheep grazing on the west side of Spanish Head.  They looked at home in the rugged landscape.

The heather and western gorse on the top of Spanish Head definitely lent enchantment to the distant view of Cregneash. 

  

I got left behind as usual  because I saw a Wall Brown butterfly and stopped to take his photo.

Tim took the next photo as we approached the climb up towards the Chasms.  I loved the colours.

And the next photo is also one of Tim's.  The heather on Spanish Head reminded him of a line from W.B. Yeats' poem, The Lake Isle of Innesfree.   "There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,"  We felt as though we were walking through a purple glow.  It also reminded us of another walk - years ago - with Colette, a friend from Ireland.  Tim quoted that line from Yeats' poem and was impressed when Colette promptly recited the whole poem.

We were rather intrigued by this little boat that spent some time at the base of the Sugar Loaf Rock.  The Sugar Loaf is a detached, conical pillar of rock about a hundred feet high near the Chasms.  Because the layers of slate at the base of the Sugar Loaf and the nearby cliff face are almost horizontal they provide convenient ledges for nesting seabirds.  It is very popular with kittiwakes and guillemots.  It isn't possible to get a close view of the birds from land but I am tempted to follow Dorothy and Trevor's example and take a boat trip to the Sugar Loaf next year during the breeding season.

Just when I thought Trevor was planning a "Full Monty" walk to the Chasms, we turned off through the fields towards Cregneash.  Cregneash is still a village with some private homes - but the houses are gradually being bought up by Manx Heritage.  It is described as "a living museum which shows the typical way of life of a small Manx village in the 19th century".  The first cottage to be restored and opened to the public in 1938 was Harry Kelly's cottage.

We walked along the road through the village and stopped briefly to admire some very free-range hens scratching in the dirt and then we were joined by a Manx cat.  It walked up the road with us for a while before jumping over a stone wall.  It refused to look at me.  So I took its's photo from a rather unbecoming angle - a good view of its lack of tail though!

 

From Cregneash we walked down Mull Hill and then took a short detour to the Mull Circle.  I have read that this Neolithic tomb is unique in the British Isles.  It consists of six T-shaped pairs of burial chambers arranged in a circle which has a diameter of about 66 feet.  The ancient Manx name for the circle was Lhiac ny Wirragh  which means "stone of the meetings".  Like most Manx antiquities its origins are shrouded in mystery.

 

After visiting the circle, we headed down the narrow tarred road to Port Erin. 

 

There was just one more unexpected treat.  We saw a small flock of birds flitting amongst some thistles in a field.  They were too far away to identify with the naked eye but I used the zoom and took a few photos - hoping to be able to identify the birds on the computer when I got home.  I thought they might be goldfinches, feeding on the thistle seed - and they were.  This is the clearest of the photos - not great . . . but good enough to recognise the species.

Braaid

 

Monday, 12th August, 2013

 

We were driving home from B&Q, a big DIY store near Douglas, last week and, as we passed Braaid, Tim mentioned that he had read an article about the Braaid archaeological site and that it might be interesting to visit it.  It is an important site but for some reason we had never been there . . . probably because it is near a busy road and isn't possible to incorporate into a hike without a lot of road walking.  Also it is possible to look down on it from the road and see the stones in the distance.   

I told Trevor about the conversation and on Sunday we got an email from Dorothy "Trevor suggests we meet at Braaid on the roadside next to the path to see the Stone Circle.     Then Trevor has a plan, but only he knows."   There is another site in the area that we hadn't visited called St Patrick's Chair so I looked at the map and tried to guess what Trevor had in mind - and if he was devising a route which incorporated both sites. 

 

We met at the small parking area at the entrance to Chibbanagh Plantation which overlooks the shallow central valley which bisects the Island between Douglas and Peel.  Years ago I saw a reference to the Plains of Heaven on the Island and when I enquired I was told that it was this area of the valley.   While we were waiting for the others I took this photo of Tim admiring the heavenly view.

Before the walk I did a bit of internet surfing to try to find out the origin of the name of the Plains of Heaven.  I discovered that it is taken from the title of a painting by John Martin, an eighteenth century English artist, who spent some time here and died on the Island in 1853.   He borrowed his title from a line from Milton's Paradise Lost about God and Satan being " . . . in dubious battle on the plains of Heaven".  The painting was supposed to be based on a sketch which he made while he was staying on the Island but doesn't seem to be remotely like the area which shares its name.

 

The Plains of Heaven - there is a higher resolution photo at  http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T01/T01928_10.jpg

It might be easier to pick out similarities if we viewed the valley from a different angle.   Egbert Rydings who visited the Island on a trout fishing holiday in 1895 described the scene in his Manx Tales . . . "  To the right were the rough, rocky hills of Greba and South Barrule, and the hills above Foxdale; and, in the centre of this hill-surrounded land, lay a charming cup-like valley, dotted here and there with farmsteads, standing amongst clumps of trees. But, I will not attempt to describe this glorious panorama of hill and vale that lay before me, for it would require the pen of a Ruskin to do full justice to it. This, I believe, is about the spot where Martin, the great landscape painter, is said to have stood when he took his sketch for his " Plains of Heaven;" so that, if any one has seen that great picture, or the print from it - which, I remember, was in Agnew's shop window in Manchester - he will have a far better idea of the scene that lay before me than any poor words of mine can convey."

 

Martin's style of painting was highly romanticised, very popular with the public but derided by the critics and by Ruskin who said that his art was . . . ‘merely a common manufacture, as much makeable to order as a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle’    Most of Martin's work appears to have a biblical or apocalyptic theme but I found this photo of a picture just titled "The Isle of Man" which is in the Ashmolean.  I suspect that it might show the Sulby River flowing into Ramsey bay with the clay cliffs to the north.  But it is not geographically accurate and the mountains are purely a figment of Martin's vivid imagination. 

 

A last word about Martin.  The poor man was given the undeserved the nickname of "mad Martin" possibly because some people confused him with his brother, Jonathan, who set York Minster alight in 1829 and died in Bedlam ten years later.

 

Back in the present, we walked along the busy road until we reached a gate and a path leading down to the stones . . . the remains of a mysterious round house and two rectangular buildings. 

The round house is Celtic.  The mystery is whether it was originally an even older stone circle and whether the large upright stones were incorporated into the walls of the Celtic building.   

 

 

The two rectangular buildings (behind the circle in the next photo) are the remains of a later Viking period homestead and cow byre.  The homestead is to the right.  There are more details at this site http://www.iomguide.com/braaid.php

We returned to the busy Foxdale to Cooil Road and walked a short distance towards Douglas before turning down a stony track.  Trevor wanted to look for a chapel which was shown on his map in a field below the track.  There were one or two butterflies but nothing to compare with last week.  I think the slight autumnal chill in the air and the fresh breeze weren't to their liking.  The weather didn't put off the swallows though.  They were swooping overhead - much to fast to capture in a photo.  But we came across a far more obliging little bird - a wheatear.  It fluttered along ahead of us - stopping frequently to perch on the stone wall and pose for photographs.  It was dressed in non-breeding plumage and, like the swallows, was probably thinking ahead to its long migratory journey in search of warmer winter weather.

There had been no sign of the chapel and we wondered whether it was hidden behind the trees on the far side of this field of inquisitive cattle.  When we got home I looked at the ordnance survey map and found that the site marked as a "chapel" on Trevor's map was referred to as a "keeill".  This explained why it was impossible to see from the track.  We had been looking for a building but the keeills are from a much earlier period - and only the imprint of the foundations remain.

The track passed Ballacotch Manor and ended on the road from Glen Vine up to the Braaid.  After a quick discussion we decided to walk down as far as Ellerslie Lane and then turn up the lane until we reached Old Church Road.  Near the junction with Ellerslie Lane we passed this old mill which had been renovated and turned into a large home.  This is a fate shared by many of the old mills and superfluous chapels and railway stations on the Island.

At the junction of Ellerslie Lane and Old Church Road is Ellerslie Farm.  I was interested in the circular building and wondered whether it was an early version of a grain silo.  Trevor thought it might be a windmill.  Now it is a popular perch for the starlings and jackdaws.   

 

Judging by the massive stone farm buildings this must have been one of the most important farms in the area for many years.  I couldn't find any information about the buildings - but I did discover that the farmer is responsible for producing the cold-pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil which I had seen on sale in the supermarket.  I must get a bottle on my next shopping trip.  There is an article about the farm at this site  http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/business/business-news/oiling-wheels-of-manx-arable-farming/34001.article

Old Church Road changes its character after it reaches the church.  The section from Crosby to the church is steep and sunny but the section we walked through on Monday runs through a shady green tunnel of overhanging branches.

 

We turned off onto a short footpath which led to St Patrick's Chair.  According to An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Isle of Man "It is a typical leacht of the Irish type.  The stone setting usually marks a shrine at the burial place of an early Christian saint and no doubt became a preaching place and penitential station.  Popular tradition states that it was from this spot that St. Patrick preached and consequently any person who sits in the 'chair' and rests his back against the incised Cross will never feel fatigue."  This is a nice idea for a weary hiker but the barbed wire which encloses the stones, and the nettles growing around them, deterred us from experimenting.

 

We still had a long way to go.  Our cars were parked at the edge of the plantation on top of the hill on the right hand side of the photo.

Back on the road I stopped to take a photo of this purple loosestrife - an attractive wild flower here, but an invasive alien in other countries . . .

. . . and Tim took this photo as we approached the junction with the Foxdale Road at the top of the hill. 

 

We braved the traffic for a while and then turned off onto the scenic route - a quieter road which turned off to the right and led downhill to a group of houses and then crossed the St Mark's Road and climbed up a long hill to the gate on the south side of the Chibbanagh Plantation.  As we approached the St. Mark's road, I felt a drop of rain and just had time to put my camera into a plastic bag before we were caught in a heavy shower.

 

Eventually the shower passed and I took this photo in the plantation of the first good patch of heather that I have seen this summer.

The various tracks through the plantation were confusing but fortunately Trevor had been there before and managed to find the way back to the cars.

Glen Mooar

A butterfly morning

 

Wednesday 7th August, 2013.

 

It rained on Monday - so the plan for this week was to meet on Wednesday morning at Glen Wyllin. 

 

I woke earlier than usual and was rewarded by the sight of this spectacular sunrise.  I thought about the old saying about a red sky in the morning and did a bit of research.  There is some truth in the prediction - but only if the red clouds are in the west because most of our wet and windy weather is blown in by the prevailing winds from the south west.   These clouds were in the east so luckily for us Shakespeare's verse didn't apply:

"Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds."

The only warning necessary for shepherds or sailors or herdmen on Wednesday morning concerned using sunscreen.  It turned out to be a hot and sunny day with just a gentle breeze.

We started along the shore from Glen Wyllin and walked towards Glen Mooar.  It was nine in the morning and we were casting long shadows in the beach.  The tide seemed to be a long way out but it was about half way between low and high tides.

It was one of those magical mornings when the sea seems to be having difficulty deciding whether to be blue or silver and settles on a compromise.  The gull which is paddling in the distant shallows is a black-headed gull.  The name is not entirely appropriate because they only have dark heads in the breeding season and even then their heads are a dark brown rather than black.  This one is "in plumage transition" - half way between its dark summer head and its white winter plumage.

As we approached Glen Mooar, we saw a man with his dogs on the beach.  He had three dogs but I had to crop the photo because I didn't line the camera up properly and my original photo had two and a half dogs.  One was returning from the sea after retrieving something and the others were waiting for him.  They were having a wonderful time dashing in and out of the surf.  Most dogs have a good life on the Island.

We walked up the road from the shore and crossed into Glen Mooar.  I stopped to take a photo of some seed heads on the valerian growing by the road.  I used the macro focus and enlarged a small section of the photo on the computer to show the feathered parachutes on the seeds.  There is so much beauty around which is almost invisible to the naked eye and only becomes apparent with magnification.

As we turned up the steep path to the railway line, I realised where we were heading.  In May - after visiting the cormorant nesting site - we planned to walk past the Ballacarnane standing stone but were thwarted.  The path that should have taken us to the site no longer appeared to exist and we ended up on the wrong path.   Trevor had planned another attempt - this time from the other side. 

 

We had been passing numerous butterflies since the start of the walk - there were even a couple on the beach.  The vast majority were whites but there was a fair sprinkling of meadow browns as well.  On this short section of railway line, from Glen Mooar to the stones, there seemed to be an even greater density of butterflies - but still mainly whites. 

 

The stones are on a small hill in a field of sheep and we climbed over the gate and walked up the short slope.

 

Nothing is known of the origin of the stones but, according to local legend, people used to leave milk in the cup-hollows on the flat stone (on the right of the photo) for the fairies.

 

"On Ballacarnane Mooar, near the Spooyt-vane, Michael, just above the railway, is an unhewn stone pillar or Menhir set upright on a little crag facing the sea. At its foot are some cup-hollows cut in the outcropping rock, about 4 in. in diameter and 2 1/4 in. deep; and, a little below, on the face of the crag, is a larger, shallow, basin-like hollow." above quote from: MANKS ANTIQUITIES-KERMODE & HERDMAN. (1914)

We returned to the railway line and the butterflies.  On a patch of brambles we found a red admiral.  I usually try to photograph the upper side of the wings, which are a dramatic black and white combined with orangey red, but the under wings are beautiful too - especially in the sunshine.

 

We also saw a small tortoiseshell and a speckled wood and then I got my first sighting of the year of a peacock.

 

As we left the railway line in order to cross the road and climb up the hill, we were confronted by a veritable plague of white butterflies.  They were feeding mainly on the knapweed and brambles in the hedge on the sunny side of the railway line.  It was a beautiful sight but almost eerie.  Tim remarked that it was like a scene from a science fiction film.  I think part of the attraction of this area was a field of crucifers on the other side of the hedge.  An ideal place for the butterflies to lay their eggs.  They were probably living up to their name - "cabbage whites."

 

We walked up the hill in the hot sunshine.  Stopping occasionally to take too many photos of white butterflies.  I thought this tatty one on the fast fading Rosebay Willow herb typified the approaching end of summer.  I liked the colours combined with the blurred background of sky and sea.

Further up the hill I saw more evidence of the changing seasons . . . thistledown.  An annoying promise of more unwanted weeds but still beautiful.

We headed up the hill until we reached a farm and Trevor called us back to take the path past the old church that we discovered in May.  We stopped to photograph some old rusty farm equipment lying in the long grass (a harrow I think) and I saw a blue butterfly.  It was a common blue.  I saw some on the Ayres but they were too fast for me.  This one was more obliging.

Once we were out of the fields, the path deteriorated.  I wrote in May that I had been told that this " . . . was not a 'recommended route'."  It wasn't as bad as I expected in late spring  but I predicted that  "It could be too boggy in winter and too overgrown in summer."  Well, now I can confirm that it definitely is too overgrown in summer.  Trevor has a friend who works for the Department of Infrastructure.  He told Trevor that there used to be a staff of 42 allocated to strimming the footpaths and that since cuts were introduced there are only 2 left!  I wasn't sure whether this was true or whether it was an example of the Manx sense of humour.  After walking along some of the footpaths this summer I am tending to believe that it might be true.

 

The "path" wasn't too bad at first . . .

 

. . . but it got worse.  I walked ahead for a bit trying to beat down strands of bramble with my walking stick.  But after a while I asked the others to walk in front.  I took this photo of Trevor trying to force his way through head-high bracken.  The bracken wasn't the only problem.  It overhung the path from both sides but we could have forced our way through if it hadn't been "knitted" together with strands of bramble.

 

It was a relief to turn onto the more civilised path down to Glen Mooar.  It is stony and eroded  - not my favourite footpath but it seemed like sheer luxury after the bracken and brambles.

 

Then we turned off again onto the shady paths down through the glen.  We passed Cabbal Pherick.  I wondered whether there were so many trees in the area when the chapel was built.

 

A sign near the site reads:

Cabbal Pherick

"Patrick's Chapel"

Ruins of early Christian chapel (8th -

10th century) with boundary wall

of surrounding graveyard.  Traces of

priest's cell remain against south-west

boundary.  Simple cross-slab found -

now at Michael Parish Church.

We walked back to the shore.  I wondered whether we would be able to get back to Glen Wyllin because it was high tide, but there was enough beach to walk along safely until we got to the granite boulders that protect the entrance to the glen from erosion.  Then we had to do a bit of rock scrambling!