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Tour of Onchan 1
Straight down the middle.
Jules Ladies Dress Shop
Here we have three buildings knocked into one. On the right hand side is the oldest building.
Although it started life as a cottage early in the nineteenth century, it was for many years a butcher’s shop with a rail outside the shop window where the sides of meat hung facing the dirt road as was the custom.
At the side of the building is a slate lintel set across the angle of the building.
On top of this was once a large water barrel or butt which was fed from a well out behind. The owner would sell water by the bucket full to those who did not have their own wells.
A village outing on a charabanc
parked outside Oscar Goldsmith's |
The butcher was Jim Corrin whose son Walter took over but Jim’s father was the Village baker and his grandfather Daniel farmed Ballacurrie Farm. The two shops next door were rebuilt in 1932. Having previously been occupied by a couple of cottages that were partially converted into shops. One of which was occupied by Oscar Goldsmith the cobbler. The new shops were built for Percy Towns who purchased the cottages with the adjoining Greenfields. The shops in the front had stores combined with a living room behind on the ground floor and bedrooms upstairs. |
Greenfields
The false half timbering on the wall facing Main Road was added in the 1930s although it was against a wall of brown pea dash that has now been painted white.
The house was actually built in 1830 – 31 by Thomas Cubbon junior, a blacksmith who purchased the site from John Banks of the Howstrake Farm. He ran the property as a boarding house for the 1841 census shows that in addition to himself, wife, four children and two maid servants there was also six guests.
The front elevation, like Sea View faces directly over Douglas Bay and is really seen by the public. It has been much altered over the years with Victorian bay windows being added to modernise the house as the years past. It is not as large as it may seem being only one room deep.
Alongside on the Main Road side the former vehicular entrance for horse drawn vehicles can be made out within the boundary wall. When the property was owned by Percy Towns the jeweller and clock maker he recycled the 1890s porch from the Manx Arms Hotel.
When the front of the hotel was altered in 1939 to allow for a footpath to pass in front of it. He had the porch re-erected on the side of his house with a small door passing directly into one of the sitting rooms. Later this was taken down again, placed on the front door and the wooden plaque saying “Greenfields” taken off to reveal the original carved letters “Manx Arms”.
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