Summary of the route
Mount Murray Hotel
Start of the route
Marown Old Church
Over the hill to Eairy
A section of the Millennium Way to St Mark's
Final stretch back to the hotel - another lovely quiet lane
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Summary of the route
This was more of a run than a walk, but it took in several of the island’s minor roads, a couple of ancient churches, and lots of roadside verges enlivened by wild flowers. It provided a contrast to the coastal walks and glens, showing a different side to the island. It’s through this countryside that the southern stretch of the Millennium Way runs, north-south on the way from Ramsay to Castletown.
Total distance about 10 miles (16 km)
Newtown to Marown Old Church 3.5 miles
Marown Old Church to Eairy 2 miles
Eairy to St Mark’s 2.25 miles
St Mark’s to Newtown 2.25 miles
Time to walk the route at an easy pace, about 4 hours.
Climbs – 30 m on first stretch, 120m from low point to plantation, 60m on last hill after the ford
i.e. about 210m or 650ft altogether. Return to the top
Our hotel
We were staying at the Mount Murray Hotel, a leisure and business hotel with its own golf course and related housing development. It’s about four miles from the centre of Douglas, to the south-west, next to the little settlement of Newtown and just off the A5 road to Ballasalla.
As usual when on holiday I worked out where I could run from the hotel. One route, over to Port Soderick Glen to the south, wasn’t particularly to be recommended as a walking route; the path over Richmond Hill (starting from map ref 340747) would be a pleasant walk, joining the lane leading up to the houses around Oakhill, but the next stretch I took alongside the Steam Railway towards Port Soderick was less easy to follow, and I returned from the Glen along the road via Ballaver, Cragga and Santon.
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Start of the route
More attractive for walkers (and other runners) is the countryside to the north and west of the Mount Murray Hotel. I set out along the quiet winding road running north, over the hill to Ballacutchal, with a splendid view east towards Douglas. The hedgerows here were impressive, with an array of colourful flowers, including a lot of fuschia. After a mile and a half (about 2 km) the little road reached the A24, but I was able to continue on the other side along an unsurfaced farm track down to Ballacotch Manor. Starting down this track, the best views were to the north, towards the high moors beyond Glen Vine village.
Ballacotch was clearly an important old manor, and just beyond it the farm road (now surfaced) joined the A26, less than a mile from the previous junction. I turned right towards Glen Vine, then just after a couple of cottages, at a bend in the road, another narrow land led up to the left. A restored mill stood at the junction.
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Marown Old Church
This was a steady climb with attractive old trees beside the road, past another old farm - Ellserslie (see photo). After half a mile it came to another junction, and I could see an old church overlooking the road on the far side. It was worth a bit of exploration – there was a sign indicating Marown Old Church, and it certainly looked old! At the far end I was able to go in through the doorway beneath an arch made by external stairways , and look around the small and simple interior. There was an table with a cloth and a cross on it at the far end, and a curtain hanging behind. Otherwise it was hard to tell if it was in use – there were signs of damp, and only a few church ornaments. Outside again, I tried to get a good photo of the length of the building, but a wall around the churchyard got in the way. However, the photo here is stitched together from two shots. The churchyard was quite overgrown, adding to the general air of neglect.
I don’t really know anything about ancient church architecture, so that was enough for me – just having spent a bit of time in and around this quiet old building was an experience to remember. I wondered at the local events that must have taken place within sight of these walls over the centuries. Checking an Isle of Man Guide on the internet afterwards, it appears it was built around 1200, and restored by volunteers before being reopened in 1959. Services are held here during the summer.
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Over the hill to Eairy
Leaving the churchyard, I returned over the massive stone steps that provided the entrance and turned left from the road junction, to continue up the hill. The tarmac road became a farm track that emerged onto the open hillside. The track itself was worth a look, as the surface was a dense pattern of the edges of thousands of stones packed together into a rough but hard-wearing surface (see photo).
There was someone working with a tractor in one of the fields, but otherwise it was an empty hillside. The track levelled off and after a mile it reached the edge of the Archallagan Plantation. There was a parking place in the woods, with what looked like a nature trail, but I turned left down the road which ran straight along the south-eastern edge, steadily downhill. On the right, just outside the line of trees, the roadside was marked as a conservation verge, which was good to see.
This narrow road ran downhill just beyond the edge of the plantation and reached the A24 road at a little place called Eairy. I turned right along the main road for about 100 metres, then left down a little lane which became a track along the edge of fields. This cut a corner between two roads, the A24 and B36, and was a lovely stretch between hedges and fields. I soon reached the B36 and turned left along it. This was another very quiet road, with banks of flowers on the verges and hedgerows, glowing in the sunshine. By now, I was trying to build up a collection of photos of different flowers, particularly the many purples and pinks, but there were other contrasting colours as well.
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A section of the Millennium Way to St Mark's
It was another enjoyable mile down the B36, before a t-junction with the B35. I turned right along this – it was signposted as the Millennium Way, which the map shows as continuing north along this road to Marown Old Church and beyond. So, it would be quite possible to make an attractive circuit combining this with the route I had taken from the church – about 6 miles or 10km for this circuit.
The next stretch was just over a mile, nearly 2 km, down to a junction of various roads and tracks at St Mark’s. This hamlet was built around another old church, which was more obviously still in use than Marown. There were other striking white buildings around it, and I spent a few minutes here as well.
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Final stretch back to the hotel - another lovely quiet lane
Various roads led off from here, but I took the little surfaced lane running east towards Ballakew. This turned into one of the most pleasant stretches of the route, down into a valley with lots more woodland and hedgerows, and yet more flowers to spot. It crossed the stream and climbed up the other side of the valley, then reached a minor road which turned left at a broch earthworks. Then right at another t-junction, and left for a short distance on the main road at Newtown, before turning left again back to the hotel.
Contributed by: Andrew Llanwarne - April 2006
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Just a sample of the many hedgerow flowers - red campion |
