We have two descriptions of Manx homes in the early 18th century, one from George Waldron, a customs officer and the other from Bishop Wilson. Bishop Wilson wrote in 1722 after living on the Island since 1699. He said that country people of ‘better sort’ had substantial houses of stone covered with slate. Other people lived in houses roofed with thatch held in place by ropes of straw crossed like a net over one another. George Waldon, writing in 1726, said that whilst the homes of the gentry were mostly stone, as for others, ‘they are no more than cabins built of sods and covered with the same, except a few belonging to the better sort of farmers, which are thatched with straw’.
Early House Styles
An artist’s impression of a country house at Sulby, drawn in 1815, shows a long, low one-storey thatched house of a type which was probably common in the 18th century. These ‘long houses’ might have several rooms all on the same level and probably animals lived under the same roof. Later on a wall was built dividing the animals’ part from the house. If the house was built on a slope the farmhouse was usually built with one gable uphill and the cowhouse attached to the lower gable. None of the old ‘long houses’ exist any more, but we can still see ruined farms with house and cowhouse joined.
Building Materials
Manx country houses were built of different materials according to what people could afford and according to which district they lived in. The farmers on the larger farms (called ‘quarterland’ farms) seem to have had well-built houses, mostly with slate roofs and there are many examples still standing. Whilst people living near to quarries had houses of stone. Others living on the norther plain of the Island where there are no convenient quarries made do with puddled clay walls or bricks made from a local clay pit. Rounded stones in the walls often meant that the stones were carried from the shore to build the house.
There were local differences in building style, for example, the brick cottages of Andreas with hipped gables. In the old stone cottages mud mortar was often used. This kept out draughts rather than holding the stones together. The surface of the walls both inside and out was commonly whitewashed. Walls of puddled clay were often disguised later on by a layer of cement. Because there were no woods on the Island in the 18th century, use was often made of driftwood and timbers from wrecked ships. Dried pieces of bog oak dug out of the peat in the Curraghs were another source of timber.
Sod Houses
The ‘cabins built of sods’ described by George Waldron have, of course, long since returned to the ground with little trace. People who were children in the 1860s and 1870s recalled the last of the sod houses being built. Often a farm labourer, with the help of a few friends, would build one of these when he was about to marry. The house was completed in a week or two. Courses of stone might be put down at the bottom of the walls to keep out rats and stone sides built to support the heavy stone or wood lintel for the fireplace.
Thatching
Local materials were also used for thatching. In the northern parishes marram grass (‘shaslagh’) growing in sand dunes along the coast were used. Elsewhere barley or oat straw was used. Some cottages near the mountains had ‘ling‘ (heather) thatch.
There were different methods of thatching, but generally the thatch had to be renewed every three or four years. To make the roof, laths of wood were placed on the rafters to supports sods of earth (‘scraas’) on which the thatch would be laid. The ‘scraas’ were dug in long narrow strips and laid on the laths, grass side upwards. The thatch was tied down with ‘suggane’ (twisted straw rope) or ‘gad’ (ling rope). Special projecting stones (‘bwid suggane’) were built into the walls and gables of a house for securing the ‘suggane’. In the later 19th century coir rope replaced the ‘suggane’.
Outside the House
The outside of houses was either white washed or of grey stone – the colour of Manx slate. By the 19th century it was the custom to plant sycamore and ash trees to give some protection against the wind on exposed farm sites. Fuchsias became common in gardens from about 1850. The last traces of an old dwelling are often an ancient holly tree or ‘tramman’ – elderberry bush. Cottage windows were often very small.
In earlier times small houses had no porch; a pile of gorse or willows would be set up as a screen against the wind. The first porches often consisted of large upright pieces of slate with a shorter piece across the top. A houseleek, a plant of the stonecrop family with rosettes of succulent leaves, was grown on top of the porch. The houseleek was supposed to protect the house against lightning and fire. Beside the door would be the store bench, or ‘bink’, often with water buckets on it.
The door was always open during the day. Doors with a separate upper and lower half could be closed against pigs and poultry, whilst the upper half was open. In later times this type of door was only used in outhouses.
Inside Layout
As you stepped into the house it would seem dark. The floor would be either hardened earth or stone flags. A chalked pattern, like the joined-up letter ‘e’ (repeated) was usually drawn all round the edge of the floor even if it was only an earthen one.
For floor coverings, there might be a rag mat or two; sometimes there were mats of marram grass or rushes. A small house in earlier times consisted of just two rooms and a loft or half loft. The two rooms were known as the ‘Thie Mooar’ or living room and the ‘Cuilee’ or bedroom. Children usually slept above in the loft and went up a ladder to bed.
Fireplaces
The most important part of the ‘Thie Mooar’ was the ‘Chiollagh’, or big open fireplace. Around this the family and friends sat during the long winter evenings, swapping yarns, whilst teasing wool, making ‘lankets’ for the sheep, spinning flax or wool and many other tasks.
There were two main types of ‘Chiollagh’ one which stretched the full width of the gable wall and had a hooded flue for the smoke – the other narrower and without a hood. In both types the fire burned in the hearth with no grate of any kind, cooking vessels were raised above hearth level in two different ways. There was a low iron tripod called the ‘croe’ to support the griddle, frying plan or pot-oven. The heavy kettle and three-legged pot were hung from a special projecting stone inside the chimney. When there was a hood a strong beam of a massive stone lintel ran across the width of the room to support it. The hood might be made of boards, brick or stone. Hoods of basket work daubed with clay were made in districts where there was no handy stone.
The mantle-piece was high and usually had a frill along it. There were little recesses or store cupboards in the wall of the ‘Chiollagh’ where fuel could be kept or fireside equipment such as the herring roaster.
Furniture & Equipment
The furniture in the homes of crofters and small farmers in the early part of this period would be made on the Island by Manx carpenters. On the larger quarterland farms there was some furniture from the local carpenter and other items brought from England. The backed form, or ‘settle’ by the ‘Chiollagh’ was typical of nearly all of Manx country houses.
Manx carpenters made settles, dressers, chairs and chests as the chief items of furniture. The table often had a reversible top – one side for working on and the other side for eating off. It was generally bare and scrubbed. Scrubbing was often done with sand and a piece of cloth or wisp of straw. Forms were often used at the table. Low chairs with a half-moon shaped seat were common. None of the cottage furniture was upholstered.
There were several varieties of beds. On the quarterland farms large four-poster beds with curtains would last several generations. Box-like beds in the thickness of the wall were used on some small farms. Mattresses and pillows were either filled with goose feathers or chaff from thrashing.
The show-piece of a Manx home was the dresser. At the bottom were cupboards, but on the open shelves above would be the rosy basins used for eating porridge and broth, the gilt lustre jugs and the willow pattern crockery which was too precious to be used.
When the floor was an uneven earthen one, three-legged stools and a three-legged round table were less likely to rock than four-legged ones. In the bedroom there was a large wooden chest, known as the ‘chiss’ or the ‘press’, where hand-woven sheets and blankets were kept. Babies would sleep in a wooden cradle – often with a rope attached to give it a ‘rock’.
In a small house, all the items of equipment for the running of the home were to be seen in the living room, from large containers like the oatmeal chest and salted herring and meat barrels to small ones like the wooden ‘meilley’ for washing butter and the iron pan for soaking the rushlights or the candle moulds.
There would be large earthenware crocks, such as the one for keeping the ‘bithag’ (soured cream for churning) in, and earthenware dishes, red on the outside and yellow inside. The spinning wheel and the wooden winder for the skeins of thread would be seen in most homes until about 1860. Horn spoons and wooden bowls might be seen on the table. Lead spoons became common later on when the mines were working at Foxdale and Laxey.
Wooden joists ran across the ceiling and between some of these, broad wooden laths had been nailed. On the ‘latts’ would be the round trays containing the hardened oat cakes from the last baking. From hooks in the joists would hang cured ham and bunches of herbs.
Different Types of Homes
Over the period 1700-1900 there were great changes in country homes. The crofter’s two-roomed thatched cottage had been replaced by a four-bedroomed two-up and two-down – with slate roof by the end of this time in many areas.
Thatched cottages were becoming a curiosity by 1900 and photographers were making a point of using them for pictures. Groups of thatched cottages like those that we see in old photographs of Cregneash were rare by the end of the 19th century.
The quarterland farmers, already in slated houses in the 18th century, might have 8 or 10 rooms in their houses. There was a central staircase and if it was a three-storey house, an attic the full length of the house often occupied the top storey. In the 19th century many fine farmhouses were built by prosperous farmers between 1840 and 1870. The old farmhouse might become an outbuilding and a large new house be built a little distance away.
Source: Manx Farming and Country Life (1991) by Manx Heritage Foundation, part of a set of teaching pamphlets issued to schools. Photographs courtesy of imuseum: long house, Port Mooar; sod cottage, Jurby; sod cottage, Jurby; Andreas hipped roof cottage; Mrs Gilrea outside her sod cottage; Knock Rushen farmhouse.