Qualla: Bishopscourt, Isle of Man

Bishopscourt, Isle of Man: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finn Bjorklid, Public domain. Every June, motorcycles tear past Bishopscourt at speeds approaching two hundred miles an hour. The Snaefell Mountain Course - the 37.7-mile public road circuit that hosts the Isle of Man TT - runs straight along the A3 here, between Kirk Michael and Ramsey, and Bishopscourt sits adjacent to the sixteenth-milestone marker. Spectators line the verges. Helicopters track the bikes from overhead. The course commentary names Bishopscourt as a landmark, and for most of the people who hear it, that is what it is - a fast section, an aural cue, a point on a circuit. But Bishopscourt itself is something else entirely: the former palace of the Bishops of Sodor and Man, a castellated baronial residence with bones going back to the seventeenth century and roots going back much further. The TT bikes are the newest layer of a very old story.

Image: Finn Bjorklid | Public domain

Bishopscourt, Isle of Man: The Bishop in the Palace

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Long, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bishopscourt was the official residence of the Bishop of Sodor and Man for centuries, occupying a site originally called Ballacurry. The current mansion dates to the 17th century, though Bishop Thomas Wilson - one of the longest-serving bishops in the history of the British churc...

Image: David Long | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bishopscourt, Isle of Man: Civil War and a Summer Estate

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finn Bjorklid, Public domain. From 1643 to 1651, while the See of Sodor and Man was vacant during the English Civil War, the palace was used as a summer estate by James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby and Lord of Mann - a grandson of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The Stanleys had held the lordship of Mann s...

Image: Finn Bjorklid | Public domain

Bishopscourt, Isle of Man: Fire, Royalty and Departure

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Long, CC BY-SA 2.5. A fire in 1893 destroyed the hall section of Bishopscourt House. Reconstruction followed. In 1920, King George V visited and planted a tree in the garden - the kind of small ceremonial act that bookmarks the visit of a sovereign and tends, in any house's records, to be remembered...

Image: David Long | CC BY-SA 2.5

Bishopscourt, Isle of Man: A Boundary Between Parishes

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Bone from Weymouth, England, CC BY 2.0. Bishopscourt sits north of Kirk Michael on the A3, the primary road across the northern part of the Isle of Man. The Bishopscourt Manse and the Bishop's Glen - a wooded ravine to one side of the house - mark part of the boundary between the parishes of Michael and Ballaugh. The s...

Image: Andrew Bone from Weymouth, England | CC BY 2.0