I’ve decided to name our blog ‘Kionslieu Chronicles’ and intend to cover the history of the farm, information and share photographs of the people who have lived here, together with photographs of the farm itself & the surrounding area.
Researching Manx family history?
I hope that the chronicles will help those wishing to trace their ancestors and hope that anyone with additional information will get in touch.
My first blog, written during the covid19 pandemic
This is a brief introduction to the genealogy and history of Kionslieu Farm, set in the heart of the Isle of Man. I am writing this in April 2020 when much of the world, including the Isle of Man is in lockdown due to the dreadful virus Covid19. It is impossible to comprehend all that is happening in the world as I sit down to record the history of our home.
The meaning of Kionslieu
So where should I start, Kionslieu (Kon Sloo) is Manx for ‘Mountain’s End’, the farm is just a short walk from the village of Foxdale, once a thriving lead and silver mining village dating back to 1723
R Clucas 1850
As you approach the farmhouse a name & year is carved into the gable:
RC Clucas
AD MDCCCL
We had always understood the date AD MDCCCL (1850) to be the year that the house was built but after further research, it would appear that the house dates back much further & that this inscription was added when alterations were carried out by R Clucas in 1850.
My research so far tells me that the ‘R Clucas’ inscribed on the farmhouse gable was Richard Clucas, born at Kionslieu in 1816. He was the son of John Clucas about whom we’ll hopefully know more as my research progresses.
Richard Clucas married Christian Corkhill (1824 – 1889) from Peel.
Christian was just 16 years old when they married and they went on to have 16 children: Richard Pinder Clucas, Mary Kermode (born Clucas) and 14 other children!
Copied from the 1851 Isle of Man Census records:
living at Kionslieu at that time were: Richard Clucas (35), Christian Clucas ( 27), Mary Clucas aged 9, Elinor Clucas aged 8, Charlotte Clucas aged 6, Catherine Clucas aged 4, Lage Clucas aged 3. Also living at Kionslieu were Richard Pender Clara aged 1, Elizabeth Fayle aged 19, John Corlet aged 24 and William Corkish aged 16.
Richard and Christian Clucas’s eldest daughter, Mary Ann Clucas was born on 22 January 1842, she was just 17 when she married John Kermode from St Marks.
Mary Ann (Clucas) Kermode & John Kermode were the next generation to reside at Kionslieu.
Mary Ann & John had eleven children, three daughters and eight sons, with four of the brothers emigrating to the U.S.A. as young men.
The Kermode family, pictured in front of Kionslieu Farmhouse
Their children were:
Stanley William Kermode 1868 – 1938
Julia Kermode 1863 – 1947
Richard Clucas Kermode 1861 – 1929
Arnold Francis Kermode 1878 – 1948
Frederick Allan Kermode 1880 – 1973
Frank Ridgway Kermode 1874 – 1958
Anna Martha Kermode 1866 – 1924
John V Kermode 1860 – 1946
Marianne Kermode 1858 – 1928
George Douglas Kermode 1883 – 1954
Alfred Walter Kermode 1870 – 1937
John passed away on 31 Oct 1910, followed by Mary Ann on 10th Jul 1918, both at Kionslieu.
Planning to visit the island to research family history?
If your looking for a place to stay on the Isle of Man while you research your family history, look no further than Kionslieu. During our time here we have welcomed Clucas’s, Kermodes, Kelly’s, Quayle’s, Clagues, Maddrell’s & Wattersons from all over the world and you can be sure of a true Manx welcome when you come to stay.
Useful websites to help you with genealogy research
Isle of Man Family History Society
https://www.ancestry.com/search/places/united_kingdom/isle_of_man/
stepping forward to 1985...
We had always planned to gather historical information to help people to track down their ancestors and I’m delighted to have made a start but I will also share a little history of our own time at Kionslieu, which began in December 1985. Tony and I had been married for just over two years when we moved from Braddan to Foxdale & to Kionslieu farmhouse, pictured below.
Soon after moving into Kionslieu we began operating a small b&b in the farmhouse but when we had children the house wasn’t really ideal and so we looked to convert some of the farm buildings into holiday accommodation.
The main barn on the original farmyard was quite literally falling down. At some stage the first floor had been removed leaving the front wall in a quite a precarious state with tiles from the roof periodically falling onto the yard.
Our free range goat at that time, ‘Annie the Nanny’ found her way onto the tall barn roof one day, nimbly skipping along the slates while we watched in horror, terrified that she would fall but she was fine.
Annie led quite an interesting life including visiting our neighbours, the Glens at the Old Vicarage when we weren’t at home and on occasions tap dancing on the bonnets of cars when no one was looking – amazingly causing very little damage.
For a few years we had used the adjoining cowhouse as a pig shed, with a midden in front but we felt our guests may prefer this to also become holiday accommodation and for us to move the pigs to the big agricultural shed we’d built in the adjoining field. Anyone who has visited a pig farm will know why!
The main barn was taken down completely, rebuilt and then faced in the original stone to become three cottages and the cow/pig shed was converted to become two single storey cottages.
Kionslieu Farm Cottages opened in May 1994
For a while the cottages were identified by numbers as we wanted to wait and choose meaningful names for them, which eventually we did. that time we had a peacock called Percy, who like Annie the Nanny was free range. Anyone who has kept peacocks will know that it’s quite difficult to stop them from being free range & this, it transpired was a problem which at the time we were unaware of. Our very beautiful Percy was an early riser, this didn’t affect us in the farmhouse and so we thought that all was well at the cottages. That was until one day in the visitors book (after our guests had left!) we read ‘peacock’s and paying guests don’t mix’. I was horrified and got in touch with the guests straight away to hear that Percy had been tapping on their window early every morning and shouting loudly to wake them up! Needless to say we dealt with the problem immediately & from that day forward we provided evening entertainment for our guests as the only way to put him to bed in the chicken shed was to chase him over the roof into the chicken run & to lock him in for the night, this by squirting him with a hose pipe. And this is how Peacock’s Rest got its name! The next door cottage, Haybarn was named simply due to its use in the past and the third became Turkeytree Cottage. Turkeytree was named after the old (over one hundred years old) ash tree standing opposite the barn. For many years the tree was the roosting place for the turkeys from the farm where, no matter what the weather they would choose to spend the night.
The two single storey cottages also have names connected with the farm, Blackberry simply because of the abundance of blackberries found in the hedges around the farm each year and Redwheel due to the name of the adjoining field. The field to the east of the farmyard was known as the Redwheel field, which was named after the water wheel at the nearby Foxdale Mines. When the mines closed in 1911, the small washing floor wheel, which once powered the circular buddies & known as the redwheel, was transported to Silverdale Glen
It was then re-erected to provide the power to drive the gilded wooden horses on the horse carousel at Silverdale. It seemed fitting to keep hold of this connection with Foxdale, hence the name Redwheel Cottage.
Family history research
So there we have a little of the history of Kionslieu, I hope to add more soon, both from recent times and also from past centuries.
If the ‘Kionslieu Chronicles’ inspire you to visit Kionslieu Farm Cottages and you would like help in researching your Manx family history, we have links with specialists who can help you in your search, the following links may also help: