The churchyard of St. Mary de Ballaugh (New Church) on Station Road in Ballaugh.
This church was built between 1830 and 1832 to succeed an old church at The Cronk, to the North, which was felt to be too small and too distant from the main centre of population in the Parish.
The new church is indeed much closer to the centre of the modern village and as originally designed had the capacity to seat 600, although this has now been reduced by the rear of the nave being converted into a meeting room, a kitchen, and toilets.
The pinnacles on the church and the gateposts, were intended to prevent the Devil from sitting on the building or its gateposts.
The church was built in local stone to a designed by Joseph Hanson and Edward Welch which is a restrained Early English Gothic Revival.
St. Mary’s is a nave church with a commanding square buttressed tower, housing three bells, which is topped by an octagonal lantern, which is a design unique to the Island.
Sir John Betjeman likened the tower to the much taller Boston Stump in Lincolnshire. Both have a tall lantern or drum without a parapet and the drum has small diagonal buttresses and tall pinnacles.
The church is surrounded by a large graveyard where the Parish Memorial stands and nearby is a memorial bench commemorating the centenary of the ending of WWI.
Inside the building is a list of all the fighting who fought in WWI which can be found below the gallery across the west end of the church. Below this gallery a collection of flags hang and the plaster walls have inscriptions from the Bible round them.
The gallery was used as a Sunday School up until 1910 and the opening of the nearby church. Access to the gallery was blocked off in 1966.
The interior is relatively wide when compared to many Manx churches and this results in a feeling of spaciousness which is enhanced by the white wall plain windows. There are box pews on either side and down the middle of the nave. It is alleged by some authorities that the box pews are original but other claim they are Victorian replacements.
The chancel is small in comparison to the nave and features a simple altar with a small wood reredos behind. The stained-glass window in the east window depict the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. These windows date from 1892/3 as do those in the north and south wall of the nave and are contemporary with the restoration of the church. In front of the chancel is an angel lectern and white painted pulpit which is dedicated to the nineteenth century Bishop of Sodor and Man – Rowley Hill.
On the north wall of the nave is the highly decorated organ which was installed in 1879.
Many of the interior wall have memorials including several diamond shaped enamel memorials which share much in common with funerary hatchments. (
visit link)
In the porch at the west end of the church there are boards listing the benefactors, the Rectors of St. Mary’s from 1687 to the present day and the Royal Arms of William IV.
(
visit link)
Source: ‘A Gazetteer of the Isle of Man’ by Leslie Quilliam RBV (ISBN: 0 9514539 1 2)
Source: ‘Isle of Man Countryside, Coast & Churches: new ways to explore the Isle of Man on foot’ by Alan Cooper (ISBN: 978-1-911177-68-5)
Source: ‘An introduction to the Architecture of the Isle of Man’ by Patricia Tutt (ISBN: 978-1-907945-10-6)
There are some fine stained-glass windows in the church in particular the east window in the chancel. (
visit link)
Most of the windows in the nave are decorated with a Christian Tetramorph although the window behind the church organ is somewhat difficult to see. (
visit link)
The church organ was built and installed in 1878/9 by Foster and Andrews and is a single manual mechanical instrument.
It is a smaller version of similar instruments in St. Paul's Ramsey (visit link) and Trinity Methodist Church in Douglas. (
visit link)
Alongside the church organ is a upright piano made by the German company G. Klingmann & Co. of Berlin who were gold medal winning manufactures as can be seen alongside the manufacturers name above the keyboard on the wooden case. (
visit link)
In the cancel is a small finely carved wooden reredos. (
visit link)
On the rear wall is the Roll of Honour which records the names and homes of the 73 men from the Parish of Ballaugh who joined the British Forces during WWI.
(
visit link)
There are a large number of citizens memorials in the nave include one for Edward Forbes, a marine biologist, geologist, natural historian and biogeographer. (
visit link)
The Rev. Thomas Redfern Kneale the Rector of the church at the end of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century.
(
visit link)
The Rev. Edward William Kissack who preceded The Rev. Kneale as Rector of the Church. (
visit link)
Below the memorial for The Rev. Kissack is a memorial for his son Harold Roberson Kissack who lost his life while serving in WWI.
(
visit link)
The inscription from the headstone in my photograph reads as follows:
'PEARL BROWN
WIFE OF DUNCAN
DIED 9th DECEMBER 1979
ALSO HUSBAND OF THE ABOVE
DUNCAN PETER BROWN
DIED 1982 AGED 61 YEARS
AND THEIR LOVED SON
ADRIAN HENRY BROWN
DIED 2016 AGED 69 YEARS
ALWAYS REMEMBERED'