The Norse called it hrams-a - 'wild garlic river' - and the name stuck for more than a thousand years, softening into the modern Rhumsaa in Manx and Ramsey in English. The name is a clue. The Vikings came here because of the river, because of the sheltered cove the river had carved, and because this corner of the island was the easiest part of an island people to reach from Cumbria. For centuries Ramsey was the Isle of Man's most important port - closer to England than Douglas, with deeper water - until the steamships grew larger and Douglas swallowed the trade.
On a rough day in September 1847, the Royal Yacht could not get into Douglas. The sea was up. So the Yacht anchored off Ramsey, and a welcome committee assembled hastily on the pier. The town bailiff was rowed out to deliver a fawning address to Queen Victoria. She was seasick, however, and could not be coaxed from her cabin. Prince Albert, less troubled, took a barge ashore - ignoring the pier and landing on Ballure beach instead. He shook hands with townsfolk, asked to be shown up the hill behind the town, admired the view from what is now Albert Tower, and chatted about the weather and the potato blight. Then he rowed back to the Yacht. The Mayor of Douglas and his entourage, in full municipal regalia, arrived just in time to watch it sail away to England. Victoria never set foot on the island. A Gothic Revival tower commemorates the prince's brief walk to this day.
The Harbour is formed by the outflow of the Sulby River, and the swing bridge across it - for cyclists and walkers only - is one of the few moments a day when foot traffic and boat traffic argue politely about right of way. Only a handful of fishing vessels still use the harbour; most of what bobs there is leisure craft. The 19th-century lights on the breakwaters look, as one guide drily puts it, like glorified Ruritanian sentry boxes. Queen's Pier reaches 2,241 feet out into the bay, built from 1882 so that steamers could call at low tide. A hand-shoved tramway carried passengers and luggage from shore to ship's gangway until a locomotive was added in 1930. Steamer traffic ended in 1970, the pier fell derelict, and was closed in 1990. Restoration is finally under way. Further south is the resort strip: Mooragh Park, with its boating lake reclaimed from wetland in the 19th century; the long sandy main beach; the swimming pool; the bowling alley; and a row of seafront houses that during the Second World War were requisitioned as an internment camp for enemy aliens, many of them Finns captured at sea.
Ramsey is the northern terminus of the Manx Electric Railway, which clatters up from Douglas Derby Castle every hour from mid-March to October, taking 75 minutes and connecting at Laxey with the Snaefell Mountain Railway. The town also had a steam railway terminus that was the headquarters of the Manx Northern Railway until 1905; the site is a bakery now. Above the town to the west, the A18 Snaefell Mountain Road climbs into the hills and over the shoulder of Snaefell on its way to Douglas - a 15-mile drive that turns into one of the most famous motorcycle racing circuits in the world during the TT and Manx Grand Prix fortnights. The Ramsey Hairpin on the lower slope is a tight bend that has tested every rider ever to lean into it.
Drive out beyond Ramsey and the island opens into a kind of country found nowhere else. The Point of Ayre is the northern tip - low, breezy heathland, with a Robert Stevenson lighthouse first lit in 1819. Stevenson was the grandfather of the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, and the lighthouse range is 21 miles; its foghorn used to be audible across the water at the Mull of Galloway in Scotland. Grey seals haul out on the shifting shingle. Inland and west, the village of Jurby has two transport museums sitting next to each other and pointedly not collaborating, alongside the old RAF airfield, a kart track and the Isle of Man Prison. The 12th-century St Patrick's Church there holds the graves of many RAF trainees who died learning to fly. The Ballaugh Curraghs nearby - peat-bog wetland left by an Ice Age kettle lake - shelter a breeding colony of wild wallabies, the descendants of animals that escaped from the local wildlife park.
Most of the eating and drinking sits along the south bank of the harbour. The Mitre Hotel on Parliament Street keeps long hours and good harbour views. The Royal George on Market Place is a no-food pub with a pizza takeaway opposite - the kind of working arrangement small towns improvise. The Other Place on Parliament Square is unlicensed but does traditional food and lets you bring your own bottle. Goodstuff by the railway station is one of the few options open on a Monday. For something more unusual, the Fynoderee Distillery on Parsonage Road makes Manx whisky and other spirits, tours by appointment. Ramsey is compact, walkable, weathered, and proud - a third-largest town that for centuries was actually first.
Ramsey sits at 54.325N, 4.387W on the northeast coast of the Isle of Man. From altitude the town reads as a rectangular grid along the south side of Ramsey Bay, with the Sulby River curling through the harbour. Visible landmarks: Snaefell (2,036 ft) 6 nm SW; Point of Ayre lighthouse 8 nm N; the long sandy beach running north of the harbour. Nearest airport is Ronaldsway (EGNS) 16 nm S. The Cumbrian fells on the English mainland are visible east across the Irish Sea in clear weather; Whitehaven is 36 miles NE.