FROM RAMSEY TO LAXEY
From Ramsey the visitor may travel seventeen miles south to Douglas,
returning thence to Peel, if he like, by railway. At the very
beginning, however, a digression should be made to Kirk Maughold and
St. Maughold's Head, immediately beyond it. Kirk Maughold, beyond
question, is one of the pleasantest villages in Man, and certainly
for the archaeologist a shrine of the first importance. Even the
little church, in this case, has some touches of mediaevalism
(thirteenth-century lancets) that redeem it from the general charge of
Manx ecclesiological dulness. The churchyard in which it stands--like
that of Adel, in Yorkshire--is quite disproportionately large,
containing, it is said, nearly four acres. For the sake of its church
alone, however, no one would come to Kirk Maughold: the magnet that
attracts one is the collection of crosses in the churchyard, now
studiously protected in a picturesque shelter. These, of course, are
mostly pre-Conquest--the term, it is true, in strictness has no real
application to Man, but at any rate it serves roughly to indicate a
style, if not to disclose a period. Man is as distinguished for the
number and variety of its old crosses as its far away sister, Cornwall.
Not that Cornish and Manx crosses have any close affinity--they
belong, no doubt, to wholly different schools of ancient Celtic art.
Cornish crosses, in particular, like those in Pembrokeshire and Iona,
are generally cut more or less to the cross-shape (though it may be
only a wheel cross), whereas those of Man are merely carved in relief
on a slab of rectangular slate. "The erect cross-slabs," says the
late Mr. J. Romilly Allen, "are, with a few unimportant exceptions,
peculiar to Scotland and the Isle of Man. They are probably older
than the free-standing crosses, because the erect cross-slabs are not
treated architecturally (as the high crosses of Ireland are), but
resemble more nearly than anything else ornamented pages from the
Celtic illuminated MSS. directly translated to stone with hardly any
modification whatever to suit the requirements of the new material
to which the decoration was applied." "There is no district," says
Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, in his beautiful volume on "Manx Crosses," of
so small an area which can boast of so great a number of monuments of
this class, extending over such a lengthy period, and having such a
variety of interest--Ogam, Latin, and Runic inscriptions, Celtic art
with its Scandinavian applications and development, Christian symbols
and pagan myths. Altogether, according to this same authority, the
island has one hundred and sixteen old crosses, extending over a period
of six centuries, forty-five of which may be called Scandinavian and
seventy-one pre-Scandinavian. Not one of the seventeen old parishes
is wholly without an example, though Ballaugh, Lezayre, and Patrick
have only one each. Kirkmichael, however, has ten; whilst Maughold has
actually thirty-seven--by far the biggest collection in the island.
Kirk Braddon also exhibits some extremely interesting examples. Most
of these cross-slabs are commemorative of the dead; and one of the
inscriptions at Kirkmichael (as in Black's _Guide to the Isle of Man_)
may fairly be given as typical of the rest:
Joalf son of Thorolf the Red erected this cross to his mother Frida.
[Illustration: THE CALF OF MAN, FROM SPANISH HEAD.
The Calf is at the southern extremity of the island
and is separated by the narrow and dangerous
Calf Sound, on the right of the picture.]
One of those, however, at Kirk Maughold is not strictly a cross-slab
at all, but seems merely to have been carved on a face of rock by the
village priest--perhaps in a moment of leisure on some pleasant summer
afternoon, just as Wordsworth carved the name of "Joanna"
Above the Rotha, by the forest side.
It comes from Keeil Woirrey, Corna, and bears the touching Runic
inscription: "Christ Malachi Patrick and Adamnan (perhaps an invocation
of the worthy pastor's patron saints): of all the sheep John is the
Priest in Corna Dale."
But these prehistoric cross-slabs, if prehistoric we may call them--and
though certainly they are not prehistoric in the strict and proper
sense of the word, they are prehistoric in the sense of reaching
far back into paths of history that are only dimly lighted, and are
difficult to traverse--do not exhaust the archaeological treasures in
which Kirk Maughold is so rich. On the strip of village green, as we
approach the churchyard, is a picturesque, seventeenth-century sundial
on three steps, with the inscription: _Eus. (Edwardus) Christian fecit,
1666_. Christian, I believe, like Quaile, is still a common Manx
surname. Hard at hand is another old cross, but, of course, far later
than those in the churchyard. This, in its present state, measures
more than 10 feet in height, and its head--perhaps later than the
shaft--which is sculptured with a ring and cross, a chalice and missal,
and the famous arms of Man, and surmounted above all by a Crucifixion
and Virgin and Child, is a rare and very interesting survival.
From Kirk Maughold we need not return to Ramsey to recover the main
road to Douglas. On the contrary, we may proceed through pleasant
country lanes that are tiresomely up and down hill and not a little
roundabout, and enter the highroad after traversing that very Corna
Dale of all of whose sheep Presbyter John, we have seen, was shepherd a
thousand years ago or more. North Barrule (1,842 feet) all the way is a
lovely peak in front--more shapely, perhaps, and richer in its blending
of upland and lowland colour than any other summit in the island. It
is this peak which is so graceful and conspicuous in distant views
of Man, as seen, for example, from the coast of Cumberland, in the
neighbourhood of St. Bees. The great highroad, when once accomplished,
proves somewhat too hard, and straight, and broad, and white for any
except the cyclist; for him it is ideal, supposing him to have spent
his morning in wheeling his way with sorrow and pain up the steep
rough lanes that rise from Kirkmichael towards Snaefell. The sea,
however, as we draw near Dhoon Glen--a deep gash down below us on the
left--grows more and more magnificent beneath us; and presently, just
before doubling the sudden corner that gives access to Glen Laxey,
road and tramway run together (the latter might be spared) on the edge
of a sheer cliff that looks down from an almost giddy height on the
waves that break far down below. This is one of the finest "bits" on a
hard highroad in Man, but to the cyclist it is gone in a moment. Laxey
opens out as suddenly, as the road turns the corner of the glen (into
which it drops, and out of which it rises, by a huge but inevitable
zigzag), as Nice opens out to those who turn the corner of the hill on
the road down from Villefranche and Beaulieu. This large and prosperous
village--it is really a little town--occupies a situation entirely
different from any other settlement in the island--it is rather like
that of Lynmouth--on the short strath where two glens commingle (Glens
Laxey and Roy) before their united waters run out into the sea.
Laxey, to the writer's taste, is far too big and straggling--untidy,
perhaps, is too unkind a word to use of it--to make an idyllic centre
from which to explore the hills. It should be borne in mind, however,
that it is a nearer starting-point to Snaefell than any other centre
in the island: the mountain tram, in fact--if that be not, indeed, a
positive detraction--actually starts from its doors. But in the popular
imagination the outstanding feature of Laxey (connected with the
industry of lead-mining) is undoubtedly the famous Great Wheel, which
is probably familiar from photographs and pictures in advertisements
to many thousands of Englishmen who have never set foot on the island
at all. It was erected in 1854, and measures "72-1/2 feet in diameter
(as compared with 50 feet of the big Catrine Wheel in Ayrshire) and
about 220 in circumference. The breadth is 6 feet; it revolves at a
maximum speed of two rounds with a capacity for raising 250 gallons per
minute." Its business is to keep the levels of the lead-mines free from
water. "The platform above it, extending from one side to the top, is
75 feet above the ground, and reached by a spiral staircase of nearly
100 steps."
[Illustration: PORT ST. MARY
is a pleasant little watering place on Poyllvash Bay.]
It will thus be seen that this mammoth wheel is less than was the
Great Wheel at Earl's Court--which latter, however, was perhaps,
unkind people might suggest, like the melancholy Jacques' _ducdame_,
only "a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle"--but probably is
otherwise unrivalled in the world. Yet those who love Nature and love
the Isle of Man are hardly likely to travel to Laxey just to get a
sight of its Great Wheel!