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A Tour of Onchan
Straight down the middle.
Kenyon’s Café and Wesley Terrace
This cottage was in fact the location of the first bank to open up in Onchan.
It opened in the downstairs right hand room with a doorway leading directly onto Church Road. The bank was The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank and the year it opened was 1914.
Later the bank became part of Martins Bank and in 1935 the bank moved to the former Alex Nivison’s butcher’s shop at the top of Royal Avenue. Later still it merged with Barclays Bank.
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In 1935 the ground floor room continued as a shop occupied by
Fred Turner then Kenyon the butcher. More recently it was purchased
by Peter Karran MHK and converted into a drop in centre for the
youth of the village after being completely gutted. Named after John Wesley the founder of Methodism, it takes its
name from the Methodist Chapel across the road. |
An Edwardian view at the bottom of Church Avenue with Willow Cottage in the centre of the picture and Wesley Terrace in the background. Where the tree is lying is now the site of the Onchan Pensioners Club. |
Church Avenue
This was the second new street to be laid on the Nursery grounds by James Spittall. The first two houses to be built were in existence by 1903 at a time when the road didn’t have a name. By the following year there were four houses, by 1906 there were two more and in 1908 one more house was added in each year.
All these houses were on the right or east side of the road and they had different builders and developers. The left hand side remained vacant until 1931 when J.T. Skillicorn built the terrace of workman’s cottages which were let to tenants.
In 1956 they all had a bedroom converted into a bathroom and internal WC. The flats at the top end of this plot were built by the firm of J.T. Skillicorn Ltd in 1972. In the early days the road did not extend down to Main Road but instead access was either by the lane top and bottom which linked onto Nursery Avenue or by the unmade up track which became Elm Tree Road.
Onchan Library and Willow House
The library was built on the site of a row of houses and shops which were demolished in 1985.
The first building on the site was Willow Cottage and it was alongside this property that during the period 1902 to 1905 Mr Spittall, owner of the Nursery Estate built the shops with houses over.
Two of the shops were however built by Mr Arthur Teare. Willow House was demolished in 1952 when an early scheme of road widening took place. The library with offices above was designed by Kay and Gill, architects of Douglas for Onchan Commissioners who bought the site after the shops were demolished for road widening by the Department for Highways Ports and Properties. The library was officially opened by the then chairman of the
commissioners, J. Maurice Faragher JP on 17th March 1989. |
Willow Cottage to the left and the row of shops which made way for the Onchan Library. Beyond Willow Cottage is the gable of W.J. Nivison's building that for many years housed the Kirk Conchan Post Office. |
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