Exploring Castletown, Isle of Man
Trip Start
May 06, 2008
1
4
130
Trip End
Sep 30, 2008
Castletown,
Isle of Man,
United Kingdom
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Man's weather was more seasonal ie overcast! We had a lazy start, commencing with breakfast of Manx kippers. The really are different and very good indeed. The plan for the day was to visit Castletown, further down the coast and in order to do so, we caught another of the ubiquitous double-decker buses.
Our fist port of call was the little nautical museum, which turned out to be utterly fascinating. It's situated in the house that once belonged to a banker and smugger called George Quayle. Now George, as a respected banker, did not want to be caught at his other activities, so the house was constructed with numerous bolt-holes and escape passages, centred around his main entertaining room which was built to resemble the cabin of an 18th century sea captain
Castle Rushen
. Moreover, directly underneath and accessed via trapdoors in the floor, was his 26' yacht Peggy, named after his mother. When his mother died, George had the boat's entrance to the sea closed off and there she lay, undiscovered, for over 100 years until in the 1930's, someone actually fell through the floor of the derelict building onto her! She is now the centrepiece of the museum - we loved the visit! Here is a URL for those who may be interested :-http://www.castletown.org.im/heritage/nautical_museum.html
We then spent an equally fascinating couple of hours in the castle at Castletown. Castle Rushen is the best preserved medieval castle in Britain. As most of the rooms are intact, it has been possible to decorate the rooms in medieval style and the mannequins, featuring the nobles and notables of the time, add to the atmosphere. Again, here is a
URL :- http://www.iomguide.com/castlerushen.php
After a drink near the harbour, we went back to the boat for supper on board. A super day, all the better as it was unexpectedly good!
