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A Tour of Onchan 2
Round The Edges.
Ridgeway Road
The name of this road was originally just Strathallan Park and for a long time what is now numbers 5 & 7 were the only buildings in this location. They were not however built as houses but in fact as stables for the whole development. The use of blank arcading and parapet walls to hide a low pitch roof were all part of Raby’s design to make them blend in and not look like a stable. The idea of having communal stables was one employed in connection with the construction of Derby Square in Douglas. If each house had its own stables then apart from the noise of the coming and going of the carriages they would be the constant smell from each separate manure heap. Having them away from the houses in one location over came all these problems. |
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The old stables for the development are the two properties from the left with the third house in this terrace being added at sometime later. The group was collectively known as Ivy Cottages. |
These stables were built by the developers in the early 1850s and just when they were converted into houses is not known but by the time of the reading of the will of Jane Moore Cubin (the sister of the 3 brothers) in 1881 they had already been converted and extended to provide a third cottage, No9.
Nos 1 to 3 Ridgeway Road
The plot upon which these were built was purchased by James Hill in 1861 but he never developed it. It passed to W.F. Dickinson when he purchased Holly Bank and then it was sold to Robert Skillicorn in 1883 and it was he who built the pair of houses. For many years they remained unaltered until No 1 was slightly altered in 1933 then it was greatly extended at the rear in 1997-98.
Robert Skillicorn also created the lane between these houses and the rear of Holly Bank. This provided rear access to the house he built at No 98 and he then sold a right of way to adjoining house owners in Strathallan Terrace.
Nos 11 to 21 Ridgeway Road
The plot upon which these were built was originally purchased by George Morewood Jones, a retired letter carrier (postman) in 1865. He used it as a garden until 1894 when he sold it to John Henry Clarke, a butcher who lived just around the corner in Summerhill Road. He had the terrace of six houses built but retained a triangular garden on the downside. The terrace was called Ridgeway Terrace, a name which was later extended to the whole road. The name came from Sir Joseph West Ridgeway who was Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man for just a short period from November 1893 to October 1895 when he was whisked away to become Governor of Ceylon. Joseph Henry Clarke's Ridgeway Terrace which eventually gave its name to the whole road. |
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