Qualla: Ballaugh

Ballaugh: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1819, two men named Thomas Kewish and James Taubmann were digging in the boggy ground near Ballaugh village and pulled out a nearly fully intact skeleton of an Irish Elk - a species long extinct, with antlers spanning twelve feet across in mature bulls, and bones perfectly preserved by the acid water of the marsh. The Ballaugh Elk, as the find came to be called, eventually ended up in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where it still stands today. Two centuries on, the bog that surrendered it still spreads out east of the village. It still does the same thing - acidic, anaerobic, preserving whatever falls into it for centuries before anyone goes looking. The village above it is one of the smaller settlements on the Isle of Man, and one of the slower in pace, but the ground beneath Ballaugh has been quietly archiving its history since the last ice age.

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Ballaugh: The Place of the Lake

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ballaugh derives from Balley ny Loghey - the place of the lake. The lake is gone. About three hundred years ago, drainage works cut through the silted-up Lhen Trench, a channel believed to follow a meltwater stream from the end of the last ice age. The water that once filled a ba...

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Ballaugh: The Runic Cross and Two Churches

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1891, a tenth-century runic cross was found at Ballaugh - an elaborate stone carving that can still be viewed at Ballaugh Old Church. The Old Church sits about a mile and a half north of the current village, in the hamlet of The Cronk on the treen of Ballamona. In 1717, Thomas...

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Ballaugh: Ballaugh Bridge and the TT

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For two weeks each year - during the Isle of Man TT in late May to early June and the Manx Grand Prix in August - Ballaugh becomes one of the most-watched villages on the island. The Snaefell Mountain Course runs straight through it, and Ballaugh Bridge, the small humpback over t...

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Ballaugh: The Railway and the Walking Path

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From 1879 to 1968 the village was served by Ballaugh Station, on the Manx Northern Railway running between St John's and Ramsey. The station has been demolished, the tracks lifted, and a walking path now follows the route the railway once took - the kind of post-industrial reuse ...

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