A Tour of Onchan 2
Round The Edges.

The Towers

At the Strathallan Road end of the garden to The Laurels a stable with coachman’s cottage was built. In 1909, Victoria Cottage as it was called, was extended at the rear to provide a kitchen, dining room with two bedrooms above. This property is now called The Towers and has been further extended in several directions over a period between 1976 – 88. A separate detached stable was erected a little further along the road around the same time as the 1909 alterations swallowed up the original stables.

This is the elevation of the extension to Victoria Cottage (later renamed The Towers) as shown on the plans submitted to Onchan Village Commissioners on 1st March 1909. The extension provided a kitchen, dining room and two bedrooms above. The elevation included a section of half timbering at first floor level.

Birchfield Villa, Dibru and Rock Villa

Here we have the last of the plots to be sold off by the Cubbin family. On 4th May 1877 Jane Moore Cubbin sold a plot to Henry Gick with conditions that a substantial house of a vlaue not less than £300 be erected on the site no nearer to the road than nine feet and that such work was to be done forthwith.

The house he built was Birch Villa and it certainly complied with the conditions for in September 1878 he sold the completed house for £810 to Leonard Dursley a wine and sprit merchant from Birmingham.

The house eventually passed to the Stott family and in 1932 a vestibule with decorative fanlight was added to the front of the property to the designs of R. H. Cain who two years later also designed a major extension to the left and took away the Victorian look by altering the roof line. Prior to this it was identical to its two neighbours. Further alterations took place in 1992.

Dibru was for many years called Cliffside and before that Mona Villa. This plot was sold by Miss Cubbin early in 1878 to Thomas Willison a printer from Birmingham. Here too the conditions of sale required a house to be built forthwith of a value not less then £300 and the property was to be set back nine feet from the road. A conservatory was added with house in 1934 but this was greatly rebuilt by Dr Richard Hamm during the time he owned the house. Other alterations took place in 1960, 62, 69 and 1996.

The three houses built between 1877 and 1879 and which originally were identical in appearance.

The third house to be built here was Rock Villa which was erected for John Travis, described in the purchase deed of April 1878 as a gentleman of Douglas. The same conditions applied but the deed plan showed a lane running down the side of the plot along the top of the escarpment to provide a rear access to this and the adjoining properties. A garage was added in 1923 on the site of the lane and further alterations were carried out to the house in 1932, 1935, 1951 and 1991.

Mr Travis became one of the executors of Samuel Shallcross Callow the owner of the great Howstrake Estate and Mr Travis’ daughter married Frederick George Callow the heir to the estate, chairman of the Onchan Parish and Village Commissioners, MHK for Middle and a practising advocate. (see Coutts Bank entry).

Onto St Anthony’s Church