The White Lady

The White Lady is a Bronze Age burial mound and standing stone today remarkably located in the middle of a residential street.

This 1m tall white quartz boulder is all that remains of a larger monument. In 1892 the stone was recorded as standing on a low mound which had been reduced almost completely in both height and area by ploughing; the mound at this point was just 7m in diameter. Excavation revealed a cist containing fragments of an urn and cremated human remains, characteristic of a Bronze Age burial.

It is not clear whether the boulder was part of the original monument, perhaps acting as a natural or ritually significant focus for the burial, or whether it was subsequently placed there as a marker drawing attention to, or protecting the burial from disturbance or damage. Large quantities of prehistoric pottery, particularly Neolithic material, have been found in the general area of Glencrutchery, suggesting that the area was used for burials from the later Neolithic and into the Bronze Age.

The first edition ordnance Survey map marks a ‘Chapel’ here, but there is little evidence to support this. The origin of the modern name of the site, the ‘White Lady’, is unknown, but there is the possibility that it relates to the tradition of the Lhiannan-shee, a witch or banshee dressed in white who was turned to stone.

Text from 'A Guide to the Archaeological Sites of the Isle of Man' by Andrew Johnson and Allison Fox.