Tynwald Mills

A missed walk

Monday 2nd December, 2013

I have three main reasons for missing walks and only one is an enjoyable reason . . .  a visit from non-hiking house guests.  This week I missed the hike because I did something silly to my back last weekend.  Not the best of reasons to be housebound but marginally better than nursing a sick dog which is the third main reason.  Danny is still with us and is playing the victim card for all it's worth . . . wangling daily walks and being allowed to sleep next to me on the bed.

I am not sure how this post will display on the blog.  It will have to travel along a tortuous route - rather like one of our hikes.  Unfortunately the position that my long-suffering back dislikes most is sitting at the desktop PC.  So I am trying to type emails and write this report on my elderly XP laptop which is balanced precariously on my knees.  The original laptop browser is virtually obsolete and there isn't enough free space to download a non-Windows browser so I can't transfer the report directly from the laptop to the blog.  Instead, I am composing this as a message in Outlook Express which I will email to myself.  Then I will pick up the message on the desktop, transfer it to Word and then on to the blog.  I know this is ridiculous but I don't know how to do clever things like setting up a network so that the two old computers can "talk to each other".

Tim obviously took all the photos of this walk which started from Tynwald Mills, a shopping centre near St John's, which was developed during the later part of the twentieth century, in (and around) an old woollen mill which originally housed a thriving weaving industry. 

They walked up to the Staarvey Road and continued along the road as far as the junction with the road leading towards Little London.  I have read that Little London was originally called Gliontan (meaning little glen).  Slurred speech resulted in it losing the G at the beginning of the word and it was eventually corrupted from -liontan to London.  Either the locals remembered that the original name meant little glen, or they thought it was rather absurd to call the tiny hamlet consisting of a handful of farms London, so Little was added at the beginning of the name and it has been Little London ever since.

On the way they took one detour through a field to photograph an old building which appears to have been a barn attached to the remains of a cottage.  The corrugated iron roof must have been rusting away for years but it was more or less intact until the blizzard this spring.  The weight of the snow was too much for the old roof timbers to bear . . . and the roof collapsed.

Near the crossroads they saw a little three-wheeled Reliant Robin sitting in a field - apparently waiting for better days.  Unfortunately it was parked at the wrong angle for a photo.  Viewed from behind it just looked like any little old hatchback.

Then they continued along the road, crossing the main west coast road at Cronk y Voddey and climbing up the hill before turning off to the right, down into the Rhenass valley above Glen Helen.  It was a good morning for old cars.  Near the river, this old Hillman Imp had been left to "blend with nature".  It has been there for years but used to be partly covered with the blue plastic tarp which is lying nearby.

Near the Rhenass River is this old stone mill or barn, built in traditional fashion, with outdoor stone steps up to the top storey.  I wonder whether there are the remains of a water wheel behind the building.

Trevor was the only one who was adventurous enough to cross the river using the old stepping stones.  The others took a sneaky detour over the bridge before rejoining the official footpath.

After crossing the bridge, Tim took this photo of the stepping stones and the reflection of the bridge on the still water above the weir.

The next photo-stop was at Ballasayle to photograph the Highland cattle.  Only one, which Tim nicknamed "Big Mama", was interested in the photographers.

 

Big Mama seemed to feel responsible for protecting the other younger animals in the field.

The rest of the walk was hard work . . . as I know from past experience!  First there was the overgrown and boggy path up from the old farm up to the forestry road through the plantation.

Then a long climb up the steep, stony track up the back of Beary Mountain.

And finally the long, steep descent along the even stonier footpath across the south side of Beary which eventually leads back down to Tynwald Mills.