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Tour of Onchan 1
Straight down the middle.
Corkills Garage
The terrace alongside the present garage (Woodside Terrace) was also designed and built by John Cowley in 1892, this time for his cousin Charles Cowley Kaighen who was a blacksmith.
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Here too the end house (now demolished) was not in fact a house but a blacksmithy. It had two bay windows and a central door but instead of side lights it had a wide door for the horses. Inside the space was just one room which served as the smithy with storage space upstairs. After Mr Kaighen the smithy was taken over by Mr Caley and then in 1934 the building was purchased by Mr T.H. Corkill who had moved from running a horse and trap and horse and cart business to charabancs and lorries. |
Woodside Terrace with Mr Kaighen's smithy in the far building which looks just like the rest of the terrace. In the background are the trees in the long garden of Sea View. |
He removed the left hand side bay window and widened the door so as to get his charabanc inside. He also removed a section of back wall and erected a corrugated iron nissen hut in the rear yard to provide more space.
He later installed a single “Shell” petrol pump although twenty years later the firm were selling Esso but ironically the present garage has reverted back to Shell.
In 1955 When his son Robert H. Corkill purchased a Bedford SB coach with its aero dynamic lines the door was not tall enough so the ground at this point was lowered and the doors extended downwards which was easier than lifting the steel beams above the door.
The next door single storey office and garage for one limousine that was erected in 1960 behind the new forecourt created in the garden of Sea View was itself later to be demolished to make way for a much larger forecourt. The steel framed workshop and coach store was altered to become a service workshop with car salesrooms in front.
This work also saw the demolition of No 1 Woodside Terrace which had housed the garage and original smithy of the 1890s. This leaves three houses in Woodside Terrace, one double fronted and two single fronted.
2 – 4 Main Road
This fine block of two large houses with shops beneath were designed by R.H. Cain and erected by Eric Fargher the joiner and undertaker in 1959.
Originally there was a group of cottages on this site dating from 1810 and 1811 but their location was well out into the present day road.
The entrance to the smithy is on the left and the row of cottages on the right occupying the location of the present day lay-by in front of 2 - 4 Main Road. The tall house on the right is "Greenfields".Larger Image |
To the rear of these premises were former stables and cowhouses believed to have been the original Ballachurry Farm. There was also a well here which was found when Eric Fargher erected a large joinery workshop for himself to which was attached a chapel of ease for his undertaking business. When the shops were complete the first occupiers were J.F. Kelly the painter and decorator on the right hand side and Fred Gibson the chemist on the left. Each shop has a basement store as do the houses which also have
ground, first and second floors. |
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