Laxey, Isle of Man
Historical Description
Laxey, a village, a bay, a headland, a rivulet, and a vale-in Kirk Lonan parish, Isle of Man. The village stands at the mouth of the rivulet and the vale, on the N horn of the bay, 7½ miles NE by N of Douglas, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.), a church, and a good inn. The bay measures fully 2 miles across the entrance, but less than 1 mile from the entrance line to the head, and lies all exposed to the E. The headland screens the N side of the bay, and terminates a descent of about 1 mile south-eastward from the summit of Slieu Bee, which has an altitude of 840 feet The rivulet rises in two headstreams on Slieu Choar and Snae Fell, runs about 4 miles south-eastward to the bay at the village; abounded formerly with salmon, but since about 1810 has suffered great damage to its fishery by washings into it from lead and copper mines. The vale traversed by the rivulet is very beautiful, and forms a favourable specimen of Manx scenery. The mines are situated on the left side of the vale about a mile N of the village, have been worked upwards of 300 years, have reached a depth of more than 200 fathoms, employ about 600 hands, raising large quantities of rich silver-lead ore, and about 500 tons per month of blende ore, besides some copper. A cairn, called King Orry's Grave, and traditionally said to contain the remains of the reputed royal founder of the house of Keys, is on a hillside a little N of the village, and an old cross is about three-quarters of a mile up the vale, at the opening of Glen Boy. A tramway line from Douglas to Laxey was opened in 1894, the cars being propelled by electricity. A lighthouse was erected in 1891 at the old pierhead.
Maps
Online maps of Laxey are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)