If arriving by car, please use the car park at the parking co-ordinates and walk along the track to GZ. For your own safety, do not park on, or walk along, the road.
The Isle of Man doesn’t have a tradition of ornate village signs, but a little effort has been put into those for Onchan.
Onchan was formerly known as Kirk Conchan, and Conchan is still the name used on official documents. There was a St Conchan, or Connachan, who was Bishop of Sodor and Man in 540 and the church may have been named after him. However, stone slabs found here depict a strange figure of a "dog head" which is the accepted ancient form for St Christopher, born in the 3rd century, known as "Conchend" in Irish Gaelic and evolving in Manx Gaelic to become Conchan. The image appears in the top left quarter of the shield on the coat of arms depicted on the village signs.
An early Manx name for the village is Kiondroghad which means "bridgehead". The earliest written record of Kiondroghad was in the 1643 Manorial Roll, when it was very small. The name Kiondroghad appeared on the 1841 census but not the one in 1851.
Onchan Parish Commissioners were established in 1894 but it was soon realised that the village within the parish was in need of public sewers, street lighting etc. They felt it unfair to set a rate to be paid by all properties in the parish when only some would benefit from the proposals. As a result a separate local authority, Onchan Village Commissioners, was established in 1895.
The crest used by the Village Commissioners is not as old as most people think. The idea of a crest was that of amateur historian and commissioner Neil Mathieson (chairman 1949 – 50). Sketch designs were produced by Harold "Dusty" Miller, a talented artist, in 1948 to illustrate the heritage of the village.
When the Village and Parish Commissioners amalgamated in 1986 the crest was adopted by the new board, known as Onchan District Commissioners.
We begin at the sign for Onchan village adjacent to Conrhenny Woods.
The cache can be found at:
N54 A B . (A+C+D) D (E-A) W004 (2xA) (2xC) . (E+B-C) (C-B) (C+A)
by answering the following questions:
- A How many bridges are depicted on the sign?
- B There is more than one sign at the location. How many times is the crest depicted here?
- C How many blue lines depicting waves are there in the bottom left quarter of the shield?
Now look across the road. The Lonan sign depicts a building in that village.
- D How many openings are shown in the structure depicted?
- E How many letters are in the last word on the sign?
About Village Sign Caches
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This cache belongs to the Village Sign Series, a series of caches based on ornate signs that depict the heritage, history and culture of the villages that put them up (generally on the village green!).
The signs can be made of different materials from fibreglass to wood, from forged steel to stone. They can depict anything from local industry to historical events. The tradition probably started in Norfolk or Suffolk and has now spread across most of the country so we thought we would base a series on them!
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More information, bookmarks and statistics can be found at the Village Signs Website
If anybody would like to expand the Village Sign Series, please do.
I would ask that you request a number for your cache first at www.villagesignseries.co.uk
so we can keep track of the Village Sign numbers and names to avoid duplication.