Names of Fields, Lanes and Paths

Running behind the National Schools is Beau Piers Lane, very short, and it leads to the pathway known formerly as The Rope Walk, where within the memory of people still alive ropes were made. Two fields beyond this, beside The Mill Cottage is the small field called The Kybe famous for its well and years ago for producing very early potatoes.

Coming back to the Dublin Road, immediately past the School we have two low-lying fields, one each side of the road both of which are known as Bell-lug. Further on forming a cross-roads are the two lanes, that on the left called the Mill Lane and that on the right the Ballast Pit Lane: the first named leads to the Mill Hill, where stands the well-known ruins of a windmill. The lane on the right leads to the Ballast Pit, the gravel quarry from which material was excavated to build the G.N.R. It also leads to the two fields called Shallock Hill locally but known as Channon Hill in some records.

Before leaving the southern end of the town, Rock-a-lyoick, the field on the Rush Road should be mentioned. There is also the Goose Acre of which now remains only a little triangle of grass at the end of the sea wall known as the White Wall. It is hard to realize that the sea within living memory has taken away a field on which cricket was played.

There is also here a well-known field, The Twelve Acres, which stretches from the Rush Road to the Miller’s Lane. It is actually twenty-two acres in area and was used as a flying field. Another notable field lies on the west side of the railway line at the top of the Golf Path: that is Scaan Hill, where tradition says there is a Danish burial ground.

Christy Fox, SHS: 1950