From Kirk Maughold we need not return to Ramsey to recover the main
road to Douglas. On the contrary, we may proceed through pleasant
country lanes that are tiresomely up and down hill and not a little
roundabout, and enter the highroad after traversing that very Corna
Dale of all of whose sheep Presbyter John, we have seen, was shepherd a
thousand years ago or more. North Barrule (1,842 feet) all the way is a
lovely peak in front--more shapely, perhaps, and richer in its blending
of upland and lowland colour than any other summit in the island. It
is this peak which is so graceful and conspicuous in distant views
of Man, as seen, for example, from the coast of Cumberland, in the
neighbourhood of St. Bees. The great highroad, when once accomplished,
proves somewhat too hard, and straight, and broad, and white for any
except the cyclist; for him it is ideal, supposing him to have spent
his morning in wheeling his way with sorrow and pain up the steep
rough lanes that rise from Kirkmichael towards Snaefell. The sea,
however, as we draw near Dhoon Glen--a deep gash down below us on the
left--grows more and more magnificent beneath us; and presently, just
before doubling the sudden corner that gives access to Glen Laxey,
road and tramway run together (the latter might be spared) on the edge
of a sheer cliff that looks down from an almost giddy height on the
waves that break far down below. This is one of the finest "bits" on a
hard highroad in Man, but to the cyclist it is gone in a moment. Laxey
opens out as suddenly, as the road turns the corner of the glen (into
which it drops, and out of which it rises, by a huge but inevitable
zigzag), as Nice opens out to those who turn the corner of the hill on
the road down from Villefranche and Beaulieu. This large and prosperous
village--it is really a little town--occupies a situation entirely
different from any other settlement in the island--it is rather like
that of Lynmouth--on the short strath where two glens commingle (Glens
Laxey and Roy) before their united waters run out into the sea.
Laxey, to the writer's taste, is far too big and straggling--untidy,
perhaps, is too unkind a word to use of it--to make an idyllic centre
from which to explore the hills. It should be borne in mind, however,
that it is a nearer starting-point to Snaefell than any other centre
in the island: the mountain tram, in fact--if that be not, indeed, a
positive detraction--actually starts from its doors. But in the popular
imagination the outstanding feature of Laxey (connected with the
industry of lead-mining) is undoubtedly the famous Great Wheel, which
is probably familiar from photographs and pictures in advertisements
to many thousands of Englishmen who have never set foot on the island
at all. It was erected in 1854, and measures "72-1/2 feet in diameter
(as compared with 50 feet of the big Catrine Wheel in Ayrshire) and
about 220 in circumference. The breadth is 6 feet; it revolves at a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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