Castletown Walk
Monday 4th August
As if all the walking and playing at Peel over the weekend wasn't enough, I had invited Beavers, Cubs and families to come out on a walk around Castletown.
The sun was still shining at 6.30pm as about a dozen of us departed Poulsom Park beside the Silverburn River heading upstream on a leisurely stroll.
Unlike the Glen walks that I organise, this was to be a dry, clean walk, much to the disappointment of a couple of regular attendees.
As the river reached the end of the park, we turned up an overgrown pathway that led towards King William's College, crossing a bridge over the railway and then the road. We all climbed onto the wall at the end of the airport runway in the hope that we would catch a plane taking off. I like this spot as I explained to the children that as most UK airports have big security fences around them and bigger clear zones, this was probably as close as they could ever be to an aeroplane in flight unless they were inside it. One light aircraft was circling above doing touch and goes, but it passed over us quite high up. When the passenger planes take of they use much more of the runway and are therefore a lot closer to the ground (and heads) as they clear the wall that we were on.
We continued up King Bill's driveway and after the young ones completed a handful of Triple Jumps on the school's playing field, out across the grass to Hango Hill where we read the inscription on the plaque and I used my limited knowledge on the subject to explain who Illiam Dhoone was, trying to bear in mind that I was explaining to a group whose average age was 7.
As we followed the coastline towards Castletown Harbour we met a family who were Rock Pooling and their son was eager to show off the crabs and other creatures he had caught.
The harbour is home to a private residence that used to be a lifeboat station based quite logically infront of a slipway, and beyond that is the Old Grammar School which was a small chapel before that. A plaque shows a diagram that explains why a wall butts into the middle of a former archway. As the door was locked due to the time of day each child was lifted in turn to look at the classroom layout through one of the windows.
A quick trip over the harbour footbridge enabled a parent to point out where Peggy was discovered bricked in, a model of which we had seen in a window 5 minutes before.
Then it was time for a "What is it" at the multifaceted sundial in the Market Place and an attempt to work out which bits of Castle Rushen were older or newer based on stonework and window openings. The one handed clock stumped a few young faces when I asked them to tell me what time it was, until I explained that the minutes could be worked out using the dots between the hour markers.
The path out of the Market Place led round to the inside of the inner harbour and a few hundred steps more had us regreeting the railway line south of the station that we walked beside until we crossed the river and the riverside path back to Poulsom Park.
It was now approaching 9.00pm so the children who had been encouraged to run ahead to the park had at tops 5 minutes to play before lots of smiling waves goodbye and the sun was allowed to set on another informative evening of fresh air and exercise.
As if all the walking and playing at Peel over the weekend wasn't enough, I had invited Beavers, Cubs and families to come out on a walk around Castletown.
The sun was still shining at 6.30pm as about a dozen of us departed Poulsom Park beside the Silverburn River heading upstream on a leisurely stroll.
Unlike the Glen walks that I organise, this was to be a dry, clean walk, much to the disappointment of a couple of regular attendees.
As the river reached the end of the park, we turned up an overgrown pathway that led towards King William's College, crossing a bridge over the railway and then the road. We all climbed onto the wall at the end of the airport runway in the hope that we would catch a plane taking off. I like this spot as I explained to the children that as most UK airports have big security fences around them and bigger clear zones, this was probably as close as they could ever be to an aeroplane in flight unless they were inside it. One light aircraft was circling above doing touch and goes, but it passed over us quite high up. When the passenger planes take of they use much more of the runway and are therefore a lot closer to the ground (and heads) as they clear the wall that we were on.
We continued up King Bill's driveway and after the young ones completed a handful of Triple Jumps on the school's playing field, out across the grass to Hango Hill where we read the inscription on the plaque and I used my limited knowledge on the subject to explain who Illiam Dhoone was, trying to bear in mind that I was explaining to a group whose average age was 7.
As we followed the coastline towards Castletown Harbour we met a family who were Rock Pooling and their son was eager to show off the crabs and other creatures he had caught.
The harbour is home to a private residence that used to be a lifeboat station based quite logically infront of a slipway, and beyond that is the Old Grammar School which was a small chapel before that. A plaque shows a diagram that explains why a wall butts into the middle of a former archway. As the door was locked due to the time of day each child was lifted in turn to look at the classroom layout through one of the windows.
A quick trip over the harbour footbridge enabled a parent to point out where Peggy was discovered bricked in, a model of which we had seen in a window 5 minutes before.
Then it was time for a "What is it" at the multifaceted sundial in the Market Place and an attempt to work out which bits of Castle Rushen were older or newer based on stonework and window openings. The one handed clock stumped a few young faces when I asked them to tell me what time it was, until I explained that the minutes could be worked out using the dots between the hour markers.
The path out of the Market Place led round to the inside of the inner harbour and a few hundred steps more had us regreeting the railway line south of the station that we walked beside until we crossed the river and the riverside path back to Poulsom Park.
It was now approaching 9.00pm so the children who had been encouraged to run ahead to the park had at tops 5 minutes to play before lots of smiling waves goodbye and the sun was allowed to set on another informative evening of fresh air and exercise.
posted by Mark
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