The Brooghs

A Windy Autumn Day in Maughold

Wednesday 30th October, 2013

This is one of our favourite circuits when it is likely to be too windy to walk up in the hills.  I was glad that Trevor hadn’t chosen one of our more challenging routes for Wednesday because I was feeling rather light-headed after a couple of disturbed nights.

As usual we started from Port Mooar and walked along the coast to Dhrynane and then through the fields to the lane past Maughold churchyard and up to towards Maughold Head.  Then we turned west along the Brooghs footpath.  The Brooghs is a long narrow strip of Manx National Heritage land along the top of the cliffs on the south side of Ramsey Bay, stretching from Maughold Head to Port e Vullen.  The name means brow or bank.

After joining the main Maughold road, we walked towards Ramsey for a short way and then turned up Jack’s Lane (named for John Kermeen, a nineteenth century carter, who lived there) which leads to the Dreemskerry Road (a dreeym is a ridge and the "skerry" part is debatable.  Either "Scarff's ridge" or "the ridge of the division".  The second version is favoured by Constance Radcliffe.)  Then, after nearly a mile of uphill walking in the direction of the coast, we turned down Dreemskerry Hill just before we reach the old quarry, and returned to Port Mooar.

I was asked why one of the recent walks was titled “Ohio”.  The short and boring answer is that part of the walk was through the Ohio Plantation.  When I tried to find out some more interesting information about how the plantation got this unusual name, I had no luck.  Trevor says that he has a friend who works for the forestry department and that he may know.  It was the fruitless “Ohio” search which inspired me to do a bit of name checking this week with slightly more success.   

I didn’t need to look up Port Mooar.  It just means “Large Port” which seems rather a grand name for a small bay – but I suppose it is the largest accessible little bay between Maughold Head and Laxey.

It was cloudy when we set out.  Rain and gales were predicted for later in the morning but the sun was still trying to shine through some lighter patches of cloud.

The tide was high and the sea was rougher than usual in the gusty wind. We didn’t see any birds at Port Mooar and very few flying around the coast.  Dorothy made a comment about it being “nice and splashy” or “nicely splashy”.  I find it hard to hear in windy conditions with a woolly cap over my ears.  I also find it difficult to time waves accurately and tend to miss the most spectacular splashes.  This was the best I could manage.

There were no seals in their favourite spot near Sheila’s bench and we continued along the path toward the lighthouse.

I tried to photograph a solitary pink thrift flower which must have forgotten to bloom in spring and then become confused about the seasons.  It was tossing around too much in the breeze - but further along the path, in a sheltered corner, I found some late flowering white yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

The next stop was Dhrynane.  I don’t know why the Ordnance Survey mappers chose the most complicated spelling.  Constance Radciffe gives no less than six variations in spelling (in her book Maughold and Ramsey Place-names) – Dunnane, Port Donan, Donnaan, Donnane, Dhyrnane and Druinnane.  She suggests that it might be derived from Dhowin “Deep Place” with a diminutive suffix.  This is a photo of the small deep place!

As I was climbing down a steep part of the path, I noticed a couple of spectators, who had found shelter from the rough sea in this “small deep place".  They were watching the progress of the other hikers who were walking ahead of me.  I waited to try to get a better photo but the seals suddenly did a rather spectacular synchronised dive, “nicely splashy”, which I missed of course, and disappeared under the water.  I waited for them to emerge and they finally surfaced near some rocks on the far side of the bay but I couldn’t get a better photo.

We walked through the fields and Tim took this photo.  Until we moved to the Island I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for the countryside to be so green. 

In the middle of another field we saw an unusual sight . . . four swans.  When I stopped at a gate to take their photo, they took fright and flew off but I managed to get a photo of them in flight with North Barrule in the background.

We paused outside the churchyard wall and I took a photo of the foundations marking one of the ancient keeills amongst the grave stones.

When we got to the beginning of the Brooghs footpath there was a group of loaghtan sheep by the hedge, sheltering from the strong wind.  Tim’s photo was better than mine . . .  

  

. . . but I did get a reasonable shot of the disgruntled sheep moving off in a huff after being disturbed by pesky hikers.

Then the sun managed to break through the clouds and we got some nice views of  the copper-coloured bracken on the Brooghs and Ramsey Bay.  The sea in the bay wasn’t exactly like the proverbial mill pond but it was much calmer than the water further off the east coast.  I could see why Ramsey Bay was chosen as a  calm haven for the Royal yacht to lie at anchor when Queen Victoria was seasick en route from Scotland to Douglas.  That was the occasion when Albert took his memorable hike up the Llerghy Frissell to the spot where the tower was later built to commemorate the visit.

We passed one of the old quarries near the Ramsey end of the Brooghs.  I have been told that much of old Ramsey was built with slate from these quarries.

The rest of the walk was mainly along boring roads but when we were walking up Jack’s Lane) I heard the old electric tram approaching and I had my camera ready when it crossed the lane.

Manx Roads have a disconcerting habit of changing names without apparent reason.  For instance one Ramsey road starts as Albert Road and then becomes Waterloo Road before changing again to Ballure Road.  I knew that the road we were going to walk along down from the Dreemskerry  Road was a continuation of School House Road, which runs from the upper side of Dreemskerry Road to the main east coast road.  I was hoping to photograph a sign with the name of the road because it has a significance to me.  The original Manx name of School House Road was Bayr ny Geayee – the name I chose for the blog.  There were a few drops of rain as we approached the junction and I stored my camera safely in a plastic bag.  But I didn’t miss a photo opportunity because there was a complete lack of road signs.  After we got home, I found the lower section of the road  that we walked along was just called Dreemskerry Hill – so I can’t claim that part of today’s walk was along the Bayr ny Geayee.

The tide was going out when we reached Port Mooar.  There weren’t many sea birds around but a group of Mallard had emerged from their hiding places and were feeding in the shallows at the edge of the shore