MANX CAR RACE 1936
This picture which comes from long time Onchan resident, Ronnie Brew show motor racing around the Willaston Circuit with cars, having come down from Signpost Corner.
Here W.J. Everitt (No 12) has just passed Raymond Mays alongside Birchley Terrace. The whole terrace was built by Ned Quayle in the early part of the twentieth century and they were the last houses as you left Onchan Village via the Hillberry Road.
The crowd with their backs to the camera are standing in the grounds of the Nursery Hotel. The sod hedge opposite the houses was removed to make way for widening the corner. The post and wire fence was subsequently replaced by metal railings and then in the immediate post war years the whole of the course was widened and a new stone wall was built as a boundary to all the fields extending from the 1930s bungalows on Hillberry Road (which were in the Parish of Onchan) to Mount View Terrace.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s J.J. McArd and Son, the building firm from Port Erin built the Ballachurry Park Estate behind the wall. This section of road was part of the Clypse Course used by motorbikes in the late 1950s and early 60s. They travelled in the opposite direction and the bikes used were of low capacity i.e. 50cc and 125cc but also sidecars. Later these were transferred to the TT Course. |