MANX MINES
ROCKS AND
MINERALS
II
MANX
QUARRIES
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Quarrymen
at
Crtg vlalin
Peel 1795
used
granite
more
Peel houses tended to bc of
red sandstone
building
using bricks
ON
have
ried
stone
sites
or
today
become unusual
was
Brickmaking
the
VC
blocks
usual
see
stone
b lil
In the past quar
building
material
in the Isle of M an docs not
have
started
brick
building
crs
bUIldings
until almost the year
unusual until
seem
1700
to
and
after that
long
places where rock showed on
the surface of th ground and it was casy to start
a small quarry
Some country people
ho
warlt
cd to build a cottage quickly made the walls with
There
vas
were manv
sods of earth
The stone walls of houses were
often covered with white vash or plastcrcd
Beneath the whitewashed walls would be blocks
of slate red sandstone from the Peel area
To
Castletown limestone or perhaps granite
avoid carrying heavy stones for long distances
the most convenient source of stone would be
used
Today
s
houses
use
similar marer als all
the Island but in the past different distrIcts
Foxdale houses
used different types of stone
over
The kind
of thatched cottages that
Cregneash
until
about
wcrc
a
common
hundred
all
years
over
ago
we
see
at
the Island
However
roofs on the larger farms
long before that time Slates from local quarries
would have been used to roof these farmhouses
when the changeover from the ancient thatched
there had been slate
X hen we look at
roof to the new style occurred
the older houses today the slatcs we see arc not
but Welsh It is hard now to find any
still has l lanx slates on
Castletown s old Grammar 5chool1s one of the
last buildings where Manx slates can be seen on
Thc Manx slates were small
parr of the roof
Manx
ones
building which
and thick and it
was
difficult to make them to
Because of this people who
any standard size
Others
could afford Welsh slates used them
had to make do with
the local slates
There
great hopes from time to time that good
slates would be found on the Island and that
were
these would be cheaper than those which had
be brought over by ship
to
sent away and of the need for more
press ahead with the work at places such
as
Glen Rushen
After a few years the great
slate search eased off and the newspapers no
slates being
men to
longer reported promising finds
1
THE SEARCH FOR GOOD
ROOFING SLATE
slate
end
The slate quest
Barrule
Beg showing
slate
came to
a
of first class
disappointing
waste
The excitement of the slate search has been long
forgotten and today we see only deserted quar
ries with great spoil heaps of rejected slate and
the ruins of the quarrymen s buildings
In the
days of the slate quarries there were scenes of
great activity in places which are now deserted
Lonely Glen Rushen had three slate quarries on
the hillside as well as a busy lead mine at the top
of the main valley
oU
I
gUARRYING
L
LINTELS
J
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Windmill Barrule Quarry It powered slate cuning
machinery
l
Old records from the
eighteenth
century
quarries
II
II
II
I
in
September 1862 saw thirty men at
work there some blasting some prizing up slabs
and blocks others cleaning and cutting the slabs
of deep blue slate
A Manx newspaper of
February 1863 tells of about eighty men work
ing at the Peel Hill Slate and Lintel Quarry
opposite Peel Castle Welshmen were working
alongside Manxmen quarrying and splitting the
rock into thin slates
A tramway had been laid
between the quarry and the quay because it was
intended to ship slates away as well as supplying
Manx needs
A few months later the same
newspaper
described how
I
fifty men were working
Quarries above Ardwhallin
I
great
II
lL
r
men
tion searches for roofing slate at Peel Hill
Glenmaye South Barrule and Glen Rushen
The main search for
amongst other places
good Manx roofing slates came later especially
from around 1860 to 1880
Experienced men
were brought over from Wales to
help in prepar
ing the slates A visitor to Glen Rushen slate
between forty and
at
Baldwin Slate
At the same time
efforts to find slate were being made at
Greeba
Glen Auldyn and South Barrule
Sometimes there were reports of shiploads of
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tl
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Lintel
J
quarry lOp of
Lintels
were
give
extra
Spanish
4f
l
J
Head
long pieces of
and doors
stone built into walls
support over the top of windows
There were special quarries where
long pieces
of stone could be
to
readily quarried
for this use
The two best lintel quarries were at
Spanish Head opposite the Calf of Man and on
the hillside opposite the Wild Life Park near
Fine lintels up to
Ballaugh
from Spanish Head were used
5
to
metres
floor
long
rooms
in
Castle Rushen
The quarrymen at Spanish
Head worked both at the top of the headland
and also
bottom
platform just
Those working at
on a
above the sea at the
the bottom lowered
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the lintels
to
boats which carried them round to
Mary Ballaugh lintels were often used
to provide long stone slabs for bridging streams
Lintels from both quarries were used in making
the traditional Manx open fireplaces or chiol
laghs
not
far from Peel
was
the best
Port St
I
GRANITE
Granite
I
QUARRIES
another of the harder rocks and was
Foxdale the Dhoon and Oatlands
at Santon
Granite is still taken from the first
two of these three quarries
The area near
Foxdale where granite is found on the surface is
called
or
Granite
Mountain
Stoney
was
Sometimes useful shorter lintels could be taken
quarried
from what was mainly a slate quarry Longish
flat pieces of slate had many uses on farms and
around cottages
Cottage porches were often
just made of slabs put upright on either side of
the door
Outside the house door there was
Mountain
at
where buckets
often a stone beneh the bink
In the farm dairy a slate
or crocks were placed
slab was used as a cool surface to put the butter
In the cowhouse cattle might be separated
on
another
slabs
from
one
were
used for kitchen floors in the cowhouse
stable
however
rounded cobble stones
and
by upright
from the beach had to be used
animals from slipping
Flagstones
to
prevent the
STONES FOR THE ROADS
The first Manx roads
stone was to be found
who wrote
Quayle
a
described how roads
1800s
He wrote
down on the roads
are
often
never
too
broken
were
made
near
at
of whatever
hand
Thomas
book
on
were
made in the early
Manx
farming
way of preparing them
thrown on irregularly and
by
large
the ruts and hollows are in parts
filled up with earth instead of stones and gravel
in winter this is converted into a mire and being
mixed at intervals with stones becomes danger
ous for horsemen as well as carriages
Later in the
duced and
Cannon balls of granite Peel Castle
The stones at present laid
1800s broken stones were intro
sitting breaking stones along the
men
Centuries ago the granite was useful for corn
mills both for small handmills querns
and also for the watermills which required very
grinding
Cannon
large pieces to make the millstones
balls of granite were used as well as metal ones
and were required especially at the two castles
By the nineteenth century Manx granite was
being sent to England to pave the streets of the
growing towns
roadside
man
were part of the country scene
An old
with memories of a stone breaker at work
He had a hammer
spoke of him as follows
with only a small head on it and a very long han
dle The handle was made of hazel and it would
bend like a whip TIle shore stones were harder
to break than the quarry ones but they had a
special way of breaking them They knew the
grain of the stone and the only way to break
them was along the grain
The stone breakers
were
paid according
to
the
size of the heaps of stones they had broken
Farmers carted the stones and dumped them in
the hollow places and soil was still spread on
top There were no steamrollers and farmers
carts travelling along the road eventually rolled
them down
Large
sections of roads
so
stones
were
that the
to
trough
Glcnfaba
placed along
carts
were com
zag over repaired sections and so
There were still stone
press down the stones
breakers with hammers at the beginning of the
pelled
Granite horse
zig
A
description of Foxdale Granite Quarry
in 1903 tells us of several different
the granite at that time including
ten
writ
uses
of
twentieth century
It
kinds of stones were bet
Limestone made better road
material than the usual Manx slate Then there
were still harder wearing
types of rock found
was
ter
found that
than
where
some
others
material rather like
reached the surface
rock was required
the volcanic
rocks
When really hard wearing
and tar macadam roads
began to be made it was found that the special
type of rock found in the quarry at Poortown
1
2
blocks for engineering purposes
agricultural stone rollers up to two
metres
long
3
paving
setts
4
kerbs and channels
metres
5
6
long
using pieces
two
or more
macadam and road chippings
llstones
I
In recent times Foxdale
the Douglas pier
extend
blocks
and
in
granite was used to
along with concrete
harbour works opposite Peel
lifeboat house
LIMESTONE
QUARRIES
Later
on
of the lime burning was done in
Scarlett Ballasalla
most
large kilns
Derbyhaven
at
and Port St l
1ary
and the small kilns on
the farms went out of use
Today it is crushed
limestone which is transported from the lime
stone quarries in the south of the Island
area
PEEL SANDSTONE
The Island
famous limestone building
Castle Rushen reminds us that this fine build
At
ing stone has been used for centuries
Scarlett there is a flooded limestone quarry
which supplied much of the stone for the old
buildings of Castletown
The stone for
s
most
Our oldest picture of quarrymen is on a paint
ing of Peel dated about 1795 On this picture
can see Creg Malin Quarry which
supplied
red sandstone for building most of the original
houses of Peel and also parts of Peel Castle
we
Langness lighthouse
came from
this quarry
The remains of an old pier vlith a weighing
machine can still be seen near the car park at
Scarlett Ships were loaded with limestone here
to
carry the rock to many different places
around the Island
There is a record of a new
boat overloaded with Castleto n limestone
sinking near Douglas as long ago as 1708
Ships with cargoes of limestone would often
have orders from farmers with their own lime
kilns who wanted the stone to burn and then
At high tide the ships
spread on their land
would sail close to beaches and dump quantities
of stone for the farmers who ould come at low
tide and collect it with their carts Other farm
The Peel Sandstone is the Island
stone
stone
only
s
free
which can be equally well cut in
It was often used for decorative
any direction
work e g surrounds for church windows
The Peel Sandstone quarries have been used on
and off according to demand When the Manx
steam railway was
being constructed in the
1870s the sandstone was used to build viaducts
across valleys and for station buildings between
Peel
and
opened
to
Later
Ramsey
supply stone for
a
new
quarry was
the dam at Baldwin
Reservoir
ers made special journeys with their carts all the
way from the north of the Island to collect lime
stone from Castletown
A man
ho farmed in
POYLLVAAISH MARBLE
the hills above
Ive seen
Sulby Glen recalled
day we would be going for lime to Ballasalla
e d have to set out early in the morningl and
it would be next day when e d be getting back
W e had a pair of good horses and there would
This black rock from a quarry west of
Castle town has been worked for at least 300
be
is
thc
one
in the traces
In early times the marble
vas some
years
times sent off the Island in small ships vhich
could sail in at PoyIlvaaish at high tide
There
a
record
Liverpool in
of stone from here being sent to
1704 vhen a new church was being
built there
The
marble
was
used
for
making
mantle
pieces for flagging
tombstones steps and dec
orative work in churches The stone was not a
true marble and old tombstones made of it at
Malew
parish
church
have
not
resisted
the
weather very well
Fossils in the rock were
sometimes
attractive
vhcn seen in mantle
pieces When boarding houses vere being built
in Douglas in the nineteenth
oyll
century
vaaish
marble
was
in
demand
for mantle
pieces
Old lime kilns Scarlett
The
photograph below shows
Grcystones Kirk Michael
anx
roof slates
at