Context 153 - March 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 8 21 PATRICIA TUTT From blackhouse to Baillie Scott Manx architecture is distinctive, but the many distinguished buildings are at risk from neglect by the insular administration and a planning system not geared to supporting conservation. The architecture of the Isle of Man is atypical of the British Isles in that its history with a non-resident landlord meant that there was little stimulus to produce buildings of architectural quality until the early 19th century. Before this date, socio-political conditions, coupled with the poor quality of Manx building stone and a shortage of timber, deterred any efforts other than the most basic in building vernacular dwellings and other rural buildings. A limited range of typologies spanned the change from blackhouse and longhouse types to a debased neo-classical symmetry in single or two-storey forms. The latter may follow pattern books in the plan and elevational treatment, but the spare detailing, use of materials, and means of construction were usually vernacular in nature and in spirit (Tutt, 2012, 2013). Abandoned dwellings were never demolished or robbed, but left for ‘themselves’.¹ These ruins, known as tholtans , are a feature of the Manx rural landscape, although the old ways are being forgotten and many tholtans have been robbed of slate and stone in recent years. The basic Manx cottage was a simple two-roomed structure with gable chimneys at both ends and a central doorway between two windows (Roeder, 1901). The parlour with the large stone chiollagh (cooking hearth) was larger than the room to the other side of the door, which may have contained a box bed, but this disap- peared once the walls were raised.There is no evidence for the out-shunt box bed, as was common in Scotland. The floor finish was either hardened clay or stone flags ( flaggyn ).The central stable doorway ( essynydorrys ) had a slate lintol ( claghlinteyr ) over it.The loft (pronounced laf or lout ) was used as a bedroom, usually for children, and was reached by steps or ladder ( greeishynirreeseoseyn lout ). The rafters ( casscubbyl or nythie) , were often salvaged in some way – driftwood found on the shore or bog oak taken from the curragh (bog). Roeder gives alternative terms for the scraa – the scaghynynthie or scregs. These were sods of turf, rolled up, two inches thick, or overlaid, on supporting timbers, gorse twigs or bracken under the thatch, and the straw thatch was sewn through with briars. Porches were a widespread later addition, some built from large slate slabs. Unlike in Scotland, where many cottages remain single storey with squat dormer windows, most single-storey Manx cottages were raised to a second storey, often at the time when imported slate became available. Once importedWelsh slate became the normal roofing material a crude gable verge (often no more than a cement strip) was raised above the roofline and dressed over the first couple of slates to prevent them being whipped off by the wind. This simple form was used for anything from a basic low cottage to a two-storey, plus attic, five-bay farmhouse or rectory, although in the north sod structures persisted and many northern houses were built from clamp-fired brick. The latter were often of poor quality, necessitating slate-hanging as weather-protection on exposed gables. The transition from the vernacular to the polite is marked by the loss of the traditional chiollagh , to be replaced by a much smaller stove, which permitted the more balanced placement of rooms about the central Former fishermen’s cottages at Niarby, Dalby, showing the distinctive Manx system of roping down the thatch to projecting stones set into the wall. Not many examples of thatching survive. Reference ¹ The little people – one of the many Manx superstitions was never to refer to them as fairies.