taking our culture forward

A tour around Ballaugh village and glen as it was known to Alan Gill (born c.1925).
Speaking in 1997 entirely without notes, Alan gives us a detailed and entertaining account of events and characters in Ballaugh during the past. Much of Alan’s knowledge of the area, told to him by what he describes as parish elders, reaches back much further than the 1930s, making this a very important and rare historical record.
This tour comes in two parts:

Coffey’s Spout to Ravensdale

This part of the tour, from close to Ballaugh Bridge up the glen to Ravensdale includes the following: Coffey’s Spout, dress makers, school of domestic science, milliners, Teare’s drapers, honey seller, Lloyd Corlett’s blacksmiths, the mill dam and race, Ballaugh Bridge, village hall, Christian’s bakehouse, Rocket’s stable, Tom Kneen the model ship maker, RAF accommodation during WW2, a fruit garden, an ancient burial mound, a landslide from the 1930s, St. Mary’s Mill, Scroundal Mill, Thie Thoot’s reuse of former Jurby church slates, Druidale, the Block Eary reservoir, wells & springs, Slieau Cuirn and Gob y Volley quarries, Manx potato crisps, Matha’s Lane, Ravensdale hotel and grounds, the old Douglas road, the arrival of electricity to the Glen, catching rabbits and more.

Ravensdale to the Port

The second part of the tour, from Ravensdale up Glen Dhoo to the Port, includes the following: Long Meadow, Cherry Cottage, fruit growing, apple varieties, crab apple wine, Old Douglas Road, harvesting on the extreme slopes of Slieau Cuirn, stone wall building methods, tram horses, methods of growing various vegetables (potato, cabbage, leek, cauliflower, beetroot, lettuce and carrots), right of way conflicts, roads over the hills, a motorcycling old lady in the 1960s, the Albert Hotel, Cracker Teare’s running ability, the herring man, the owners of Radio Caroline, road building, natural remedies and herbal cures, sloe gin, woodland and trees, land use, peas, the Inner and Outer Ports, the river and wells, cattle farming, Manx fireplaces and roofing.