North Barrule

Not for the faint-hearted!

 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

    I am beginning to wonder whether some malevolent weather god lives on the top of North Barrule and wreaks revenge on any stupid hikers that invade his territory.  The forecast Monday morning wasn't great but it wasn't too bad either so we really weren't prepared for the conditions on the mountain.  I shouldn't really call North Barrule a mountain as it is only 1860 feet high and we are told that a hill has to be 2000 feet high before it is entitled to be called a mountain.

 

    We drove to the parking area near Ballure Reservoir intending to walk up to the minor road between the Gooseneck and the Hibernian.  At the end of that road, a farm track continues all the way around the back of North Barrule and up the Corony Valley.  We could see patches of fog on the mountain and there were also patches of drizzle.   During a drier patch I stopped to take this photo of the lane.  It looks very peaceful but I realised that the wind was getting stronger when  I dropped the plastic bag that I had used to protect my camera and had to chase it back down the lane.  

We were heading for Park Lewellyn, a ruined farmhouse in the Corony Valley.  The name sounds rather posh but "park" is a variation on "pairk" which means "pasture" in Manx.  So it really just means Lewellyn's pasture.  On the map the name is spelt with a single L at the beginning, but the book of Maughold and Ramsey Place-names uses the usual double L spelling.  It appears that the original owner had pretentions of poshness because he chose the name Mount Atholl for this property.  The book says "The original encloser, John Llewellyn, evidently wished to honour the Duke of Atholl, Lord of the Isle, with this name but in more recent times the name Pairk Llewellyn is always used."

 

The wind was getting stronger as we approached Park Lewellyn.   I was amused when we were passed by a chunk of gorse which came rolling down the track towards us - giving an Oscar-worthy imitation of tumbleweed.

There is a route through the fields behind the old farm up to the top of the North Barrule ridge.  This route meets the path along the ridge near a stile in the stone wall which crosses the mountain just before the final climb to the peak.  Putting off the steep climb as long as possible, we stopped to look at the old farmhouse and take a few photos.

 

Inside the main building, there were two rooms at ground level, behind a small entrance porch.  This old oven was built into a chimney between the two rooms.  Judging by the heaps of slate, the upper part of the chimney appeared to have collapsed into the other room but this room was almost clear apart from the fallen roof timbers.

 

Reluctantly continuing on our way!  No more photos for a while because of the difficulty of holding the camera steady in the wind and then persistent drizzle.

Our original intention was to climb to the top of the highest peak on the North Barrule ridge and then descend the north east side of Barrule and return to the cars.  We had expected to be sheltered from the wind during most of the climb up the east side because the forecast was for north-westerlies - but part of the way up the hill we kept being buffeted by strong gusts of wind.  The valley seemed to be acting like a wind tunnel and concentrating the gusts.  We were all staggering at times. battling to keep upright.  Then an even stronger gust blew me off balance.  I tried to grab a rock to steady myself but ended up toppling over in a sort of swallow dive with half twist.  Luckily I landed on soft grass, rolled over, and didn't even get a bruise - or damage my camera which was in my pocket.  But I was worried about conditions up on top of the mountain where the wind might be even stronger.  If one of us fell on a steep, rocky part of the path we might be seriously injured.  After a consultation when we reached the stile, we decided to be sensible and aborted the walk up to the peak.

 

We headed straight down the other side, following the wall through the thick fog until we finally caught a glimpse of Ramsey as we emerged from the cloud just above the mountain road. 

 

Then we crossed the mountain road near Guthrie's Memorial and walked down to Glen Auldyn through the shelter of the trees in Brookdale Plantation.  After dropping in on our neighbours for some very welcome warmth, coffee and chat, we collected our other car and drove back to retrieve the cars which we had left at Ballure.