Castletown

On Monday morning we went down to the steam train station in Port Erin.

This is the neatest thing. They have two small steam trains that chug away between Port Erin and Douglas, the capital. They are beautifully restored with original hardware and very shiny.

Our trusty 5 day passes get us on the steam train, as well as the buses, and the electric train that we will talk about later. Oh, and a horse drawn tram as well.  Yahoo.

Anyway, we took the train only as far as Castletown. This was the capital of the IOM until 1869. Now it is a pretty place with the best preserved medieval castle in the UK.

It was fun wandering around this castle which was built in the late 8th century for a Viking king.

We entered over a drawbridge that looked somewhat newer than 8 cent. 

But after that we could see the ancient handwork on full display.

There was a lot of climbing involved. A very narrow spiral staircase took us up to the top through various rooms which have been used for different purposes over the years. It was traded back  and froth between the the Scots and the English depending who won the last battle. Robert The Bruce was there for a bit.  The castle was used as a prison in the 18th century after it had started to fall into decay. What a miserable place that would have been to do your time. 

From the top down we passed through rooms that had been decorated with tapestries and banquet tables that showed the better side. But we reckoned that it would still have been miserable. 

Anyway it is a fine castle and we had fun. 

One information board showed a threat sent by Oliver Cromwell to Lord Stanley, who had the castle and was Lord of Mann. He was no wilting violet. Here is his response. Sheelagh plans to adopt this wording to all demands placed upon us.

At some point in it's history, Elizabeth I was Lord of Mann. She gave a clock to the castle. It only has one hand because people were not concerned with minutes. Unlike today when everything is timed to the nanosecond.




After all that climbing, we headed for lunch at the George Pub . Really good.

Then we visited the old House Of Keys which was the original lower house of the Tynwald, the IOM parliament. The island is divided into 12 Sheadings, or districts. Each has two representatives.  Every 5 years they have general elections. It is the oldest continuous parliament in the world. The upper house is made up of people selected by these representatives. 

The guy telling us about the place said that he had been the speaker at one time and he had little good to say about the people doing the job now. He said there are no parties, as we have, everyone runs as an independent, but there certainly seemed to be factions. 

After that we went to a nautical museum and we didn't seem to take any pictures. However it was very interesting. 

I have a cold, so by now I was flagging. The weather was threatening rain. We caught the bus home.