A Short History of Onchan

Post war development was slow with a few new houses appearing between the gaps on King Edward Road, Groudle Road, Alberta Drive and Whitebridge Road.

The Fairway and Eskdale Road appeared at this time but were only partially developed. The commissioners added housing in The Park and Ballachrink to the eight houses they owned in Nursery Avenue. Some private housing also took place in Onchan Park with the gaps being filled in the following decade.

Towards the end of the 1960s things took off, the private plots which had lain empty on the Ballachrink Estate were soon bought up at prices as low as five shillings per square yard.

The commissioners bought the 100 acre Birch Hill Farm and laid it out with private plots for sale and on part they built local authority housing in Hacket Close, Meadow Close, Ashley Park and the Springfield Court elderly persons complex.

Mount Royal with Imperial Terrace and Royal Avenue West above

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The Birch Hill Estate was laid out on the American open plan basis with no front garden walls, grass verges and areas of open space between some of the roads.

At the same time as the Birch Hill Park was rising, a large area of land which for many years was used for grazing by the Douglas Corporation tram horses, was being developed by J. J. McArd and Sons the builders from Port Erin.

This was Ballachurry Park where McArds built all the houses rather than selling off plots. A third large development of this period but one which took a lot longer to complete was Lakeside Gardens where the original plan was to have a lake as a feature together with a club house for residents but this was not to be.

Ballachrink Estate with Lakeside Gardens above
in the summer of 1969

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The late 1960s the 1970s, 80s and into the 90s saw further development on the lower reaches of the Howstrake Golf Course with Howe Road, Fairway Close, Banks Howe, Manor Park, King Edward Park, Harbour Road, Turnberry Avenue and Wentworth Close being developed.

Birch Hill continued to develop by the addition of land at the former Ashley Hill Farm so an area which was temporarily known as Windsor Heights was added to the upper part of the late 1960s estate and provided a better access to Ashley Hill School which had been built to cope with the ever increasing number of children from the expanding estates.

A different type of development occurred on the site of the former White City Amusement Park where apartments were built ziggurat style against the rear embankment and had a heavy Spanish influence in the architectural style.

The cascading foliage from the balconies shown on the artists impression never quite materialised

.Further apartments are now being built on the site of the former Majestic Hotel by Heritage Homes who are also currently building on the North Bank Land as an extension to Lakeside Gardens and are also about to complete a very large office block on the site of the former Douglas Bay Hotel at Port Jack.

Open plots on the Fairway.

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This is considerably larger then the other purpose built office block in Onchan, Coutts Bank which was built on the site of the former Ballacurrie House and completed in 1991.

The Commissioners having continued to build local authority housing on the Ballachrink Estate and then Heywood Park are also about to complete a new sheltered accommodation block which has been built in conjunction with SSAFA and the Joint Ex-Servicemen’s Association and this adjoins Heywood Park