THE FUTURE OF MAN

Gavin Stamp on the gloomy prospects for an island ruled by philistines

Port Erin CASTLETOWN, on the narrow gauge steam railway which, in the summer months, takes over an hour to convey late-Victorian wooden carriages, packed with tourists, the 15-odd miles from Doug- las to Port Erin, was once the capital of the Isle of Man. It still has a tiny Parliament Square with the Old House of Keys on one side; it also boasts a fine castle with a police station by Baillie Scott opposite its fortified gate. But the best part of the town is the Parade, an open space framed by the castle and by fine classical façades. In the centre is a Greek Doric column, conspi- cuous by the absence of the statue of Governor Smelt whom it was intended to commemorate — funds or affection did not stretch that far. Beyond the column, separ- ating the Parade from the sea, is a wonder- ful and whimsical Gothick facade of 1824. This is St Mary's, described by John Betjeman in his evocative essay on the island as a 'box-pewed, three-deckered, still unspoilt church'.

No longer. When I revisited this lovely building in August, a bonfire of all the pews was still smouldering in the yard. All the monuments have been smashed and the interior gutted, although planning per- mission has not yet been granted for the change of use into luxury office accom- modation by an English developer which is to be its salvation. We should be grateful for small mercies: the Diocese of Sodor and Man was quite happy for St Mary's to disappear altogether. Betjeman, who loved the church, took a close interest in its fate before he died and made the point, obvious but true, that it was as important to Castletown as St Paul's is to London. The Bishop of Sodor and Man remained unimpressed, as did the planning author- ities, such as they are, of the ancient Kingdom of Man.

Many reasons exist for visiting this strange and delightful island between Ul- ster, Scotland and the Lake District — all three of which it resembles in part. There are the magnificent natural scenery, the old-fashioned seaside resorts, the small fishing villages, the antique public trans- port — as well as steam trains there are Edwardian trams on the Manx Electric Railway from Douglas to Ramsay — and, if you like that sort of thing, the tiresome Ti' motorcycle races. Now there is another: to have a foretaste of the England of the future if Mrs Thatcher's Govern- ment succeeds in 'speeding up the planning process' and relaxing historic building legislation. The only difference is that in Man it is not that 'conservation has gone too far' but that it has gone hardly any- where — and it shows.

The few members of the Tynwald, Man's ancient parliament, who consider such things argue that to stop owners mutilating or destroying old buildings or putting up new ones in inappropriate places is an infringement of their liberties. Manxmen are rightly proud of their ancient independ- ence and liberties. Few in England appreci- ate Man's peculiar constitutional position, for it is not part of the United Kingdom, nor is the Queen queen; rather she is the hereditary Lord of Man. The island has its own parliament, the Tynwald Court, consisting of the lower house, the House of Keys, and an upper Council. The millen- nium of Tynwald was celebrated with a degree of bogus ballyhoo in 1979 — bogus because its origins are obscure — but there is no doubt that it is ancient. Laws have been publicly proclaimed from Tynwald Hill at St John's, a Viking, or earlier, artificial mound, since at least the 15th century.

Man is both Celtic and Norse. Nominally under the suzereignty of the Kings of

Norway, it was ruled by various Viking overlords until 1266 when the island was ceded to Scotland — a transfer confirmed by a battle in 1275 at Ronaldsway, now the site of the island's airport. Eventually falling under the control of England, the lordship was given to Sir John Stanley by Henry IV in 1406. Thereafter the island was ruled by the Earls of Derby and their successors, the Dukes of Athol!, until 1765, when, by the 'Revesting Act', the British Government bought out the Duke's sovereign and revenue rights. In 1828 the Duke of Atholl's remaining manorial and patronage rights were purchased by the Crown, which is still represented on the island by a Lieutenant-Governor, who must give his assent to any decisions of Tynwald.

Man may still have its own coinage, postage stamps and flag, but over impor- tant matters its fate is decided in West- minster. Nobody asked Tynwald before making the island a huge camp for prison- ers of war and internees in two world wars and nobody is likely to be asked if, as is rumoured, the Government uses hospitals on Man to house children from Liverpool, children 'in care' who will be left uncared for if that city's council services collapse. Manxmen delude themselves to a great extent about their independence and liber- ties. For long the refuge of debtors and smugglers, the Isle of Man is now a haven for tax exiles and the shadier end of international finance — there is even a Manx-Iranian Bank. The relationship of the island to Britain is thus in a sense parasitic; it benefits from our tax laws and levels and was, in fact, adversely affected by Mrs Thatcher's abolition of exchange controls.

Tynwald has little important to do other than to encourage potential tax exiles and offshore companies to settle on the island. It was determined that the New Resident Policy of the early 1970s should not be spoiled by any laws which might stop the immigrant rich from building expensive new bungalows where they wanted. Man is a small island with a population of 66,000; everybody knows each other and under- stands — and promotes — each other's interests. There is no opposition in Tyn- wald, which, with 24 members of the House of Keys, resembles not so much a parliament as a monolithic English city council, philistine, imperious, complacent and deeply resentful of any criticism, like, say, the councils of Gloucester or Wigan. It has been keen to promote modern de- velopments, like the appalling Summer- land fun palace, which caught fire in 1979 with such horrific consequences. Being part of a small, insular and introverted community has disadvantages as well as advantages.

As regards the Isle of Man's landscape and its heritage of buildings, the results of this provincial complacency are disastrous. Apart from Viking burial mounds and ruined castles which are Ancient Monu- ments, Man's historic architecture is most- ly 18th- and 19th-century. Of this, only about 80 buildings are `registered' and this register of historic buildings is largely useless as there is little legal protection for buildings on it, while owners can object to their properties being included in the first place. This, of course, negates the whole purpose of the register; in Britain historic buildings are statutorily 'listed' as an index of quality, regardless of ownership or condition. Such are ancient liberties: the liberty of individuals to despoil the assets of the Isle of Man with impunity and thus to impoverish other present and future Manxmen. A member of Tynwald I spoke to seemed incredulous that in England owners of houses are proud to have them listed and estate agents advertise the fact.

Nobody in government has any know- ledge of or interest in historic buildings; indeed, the chief planning officer has ruined his house at the end of Windsor Terrace, a fine, stuccoed group worthy of Cheltenham, with plate glass and aluminium-framed windows. Unfortunate- ly, the Manx planners do not seem very interested in planning either. Often I am tempted to think that our own Town and Country Planning Acts have done little to mitigate the selfish and ruthless vulgarity of the mid-20th century — until I visit Ireland or the Isle of Man, for on the island

every town and village is spoiled by rashes of badly sited, incongruously designed and inappropriately scaled bungalows. They make one appreciate how very well Eng- land is, on the whole, planned and our countryside protected.

A last villain on the island is the usual one: the Church of England. The Bishop of the old and curious diocese of Sodor and Man sits in the House of Lords, but because his see is outside the UK cannot vote. A further consequence of this anomaly is that the Church's Pastoral Measure does not apply to Man and a building like St Mary's, Castletown, was not eligible to receive the financial help which would have been available in Eng- land to save it. In all other respects, however, the Church of England in Man manifests all the selfish, progressive and philistine defeatism of Anglicanism on the mainland. While I was on the island, the vicar of St Paul's, Ramsay, another build- ing of the 1820s, summarily announced that his church was closed forthwith as there was no money to repair the roof. Services will now he held in the hideous modern hall next door. The last Bishop, the Very Revd Vernon Nicholls, chose to abandon Bishopscourt, his historic resi- dence, in favour of a pedestrian Victorian villa in Douglas, never considering the needs and wishes of his successors. As always, men with no sense of history• have no confidence in the future. Also„ the diocese of Sodor and Man gives the lie to the Church's argument that it is competent to look after its own affairs without the compulsion of listed building law.

Anglicanism is declining; perhaps, thanks to such bishops, it deserves to. There is a small but loyal body of Roman Catholics on the island who, in Ramsay, have, in contrast, restored their most beautiful church by Sir Giles Scott, architect of Liverpool Cathedral. Tradi- tionally, however, the island has been largely Methodist. David Robertson, the English author of A Tour through the Isle of Man published in 1794, considered that `To a gloomy imagination. . . nourished by indolence and solitude, perhaps may be

imputed the general influence of Method- ism on the Island.' That influence is now also declining, needless to say.

Inspired by enthusiasm for the French Revolution, Robertson ended his interest- ing book with a passionate plea for the `Sovereignty of the People' and for Manx- men to cast off the inhibiting shackles of British rule (and that of the Duke of Atholl). There are good reasons for doing the same today and, inevitably perhaps, there is a nationalist party, Mec Vannin, which is committed to 'national independ- ence for Mann as a Democratic Republic' but has yet to gain any seats in the House of Keys. So far, all that nationalism has really achieved is the tiresome irrelevance of bilingual street names — Something even more absurd than the similar policy in independent Ireland in the 1920s, for nobody can now pronounce, let alone speak, the Manx language.

So far the doughtiest fighter for Man's living heritage, much of which is architectural, has been the Isle of Man Victorian Society. Unfortunately, their work is undermined by the absence of any good published guide to the island's build- ings. There is only Betjeman's essay, for even John Murray did not think it worth- while to produce a Handbook for Travellers in Man in the 19th century while the late Sir Nikolaus Pevsner may have been put off doing a Buildings of the Isle of Man volume by his experience of the place in 1940 — as a German internee. It was a complete surprise to me that there are, as well as the church by Giles Scott and houses by Baillie Scott — the Arts and Crafts architect who stayed on the island because, the story goes, he was so seasick on the way over that he could not face going back for a decade — churches by Pearson and Caroe, as well as good build- ings by local architects. There are also those designed by George Steuart, the Shrewsbury architect, for the Dukes of Atholl.

These buildings matter as they are a valuable asset if tourists are going to continue to come. The island's traditional role as a place of resort for Lancastrian holidaymakers has greatly declined; Mar- bella is warmer and now the Liverpool ferry has been discontinued — another nail in the coffin of that poor city. Next year has been declared Manx Heritage Year and a Manx Heritage Foundation has been established, but as its total budget is only £50,000 it can scarcely achieve much with- out active help from Tynwald. What seems absurd is that the huge amount of foreign money in the country is not tapped, just a little, for the benefit of the island. So far the only positive result of the New Resi- dent Policy has been the employment of more tax consultants, bank clerks and bungalow builders. If no strong action is taken to protect the island it will soon become merely an uninteresting prototype of south-east England when Mrs Thatch- er's vision is realised, with all of the Green Belt covered by Barratt homes.