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A Tour of Onchan
Straight down the middle.
The Onchan War Memorial
Beside the war memorial is a weeping witch elm tree, often mistaken for a weeping willow. This was not the original site of the war memorial for that too had to be repositioned because of road widening in the mid 1980s. The tree was in fact part of the Isle of Man Nursery and Seed Company’s extensive grounds.
The business was set up in 1839 by Alexander Spittall who came to the Island from Whitehaven. The land stretched from Main Road to behind the present day Archibald Knox public house and over towards School Road.
The entrance to the nursery and pleasure grounds was roughly where Church Avenue now meets Main Road. Alongside the entrance was a gardeners cottage but the head gardener lived in a more substantial house in the grounds which later became The Nursery Hotel.
The first head gardener was Thomas Lyle of Scotland but in 1846 he set up his own business where the rose gardens and the former Okells Brewery are now to be found near Broadway in Douglas.
The second head gardener was Peter Poland who later set up a small nursery at Little Mill and also acted as the parochial surveyor for Onchan.
The war memorial was originally erected on the corner of Church Avenue facing The Butt and the parish church.
It was erected by public subscription and administered by a committee of representatives from the Village and Parish Commissioners. They asked Archibald Knox the Manx artist to design a memorial which was executed by Thomas Quayle monumental mason of Douglas. It is carved out of a twelve foot long piece of Irish limestone and originally was set into a large granite boulder which was carried from Scotland in the melting ice of the Ice Age and deposited on the side of Banks Howe. The location was opposite The Butt on a plot of land at the base of Church Avenue. The war memorial was unveiled by Mr & Mrs Richard Maltby Broadbent who lost three sons to the Great War. The plaques set in front recording those who gave their lives during the Second World War were designed by Wilfred T. Quayle, architect. Knox’s design has a wheel cross on the front but on the rear is an outline of a cross believed to be based on one of the Norse crosses now to be found in St Peter’s Church. |
Archibald Knox's war memorial now nestles beneath the weeping elm from the former Onchan Nursery Gardens. The two seats in front of the memorial are dedicated to the memory of Onchan's longstanding clergymen, Canon John Duffield and Father James McGrath. |
Royal Buildings
Opposite the war memorial is a single building that was once attached to a pair of houses/shops that were demolished in anticipation of office development on the site.
This property was built to the designs of Armitage Rigby the architect by W.J. Nivison for his brother Alex who was a butcher.
It was completed in 1905 and provided him with a home above his work place. The shop had a cellar below and the meat hung outside the shop on a rail set below a slate canopy.
There was a large out building in the rear yard which he applied to use as a slaughter house in February 1906 but his application was turned down. In the end he erected a corrugated iron hut at the base of The Whitebridge just over the boundary into Onchan Parish. The shop later became Martins and then Barclays Bank. It was owned by the commissioners for several years until sold to the present owner who intends to incorporate the building into an hotel development on the adjoining site. |
Alex Nivison's butcher's shop at the top of Royal Avenue as built by his brother W.J. Nivison father of Jack Nivison later Captain of the Parish. |
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