The Salmon Lake, just above the new Ballacregga Corn Mill tearooms and conference centre, was formerly the Ballacregga Corn Mill pond. This old mill, situated at the confluence of the Laxey and Glen Mooar rivers, was first documented in 1863 and was called Creer’s Mill after William Creer, the miller in 1880. The last miller was Lou Killip, who ran it between the First and Second World Wars. He also ran a small fair with a coconut shy, skittles and an archery stall, while his wife sold refreshments and ice creams. For the next 60 years it was occupied by Manx Engineers Ltd but they transferred to Ramsey in 2009. After standing empty for some time it was purchased by Stewart and Barbara Clague, directors of Manx building services firm SCS (Stewart Clague Services). They have converted the former factory complex into a heritage centre and the old corn mill itself is now a café.
The centre aims to have a carbon neutral footprint and is heated and air conditioned by a unique ground source heat pump system and a turbine that generates electricity from the lake. It was hoped to achieve some of this directly from the replacement water wheel, named Barbara after Mrs. Clague and made possible largely thanks to Bob Jeavons of Tynwald Mills, who loaned the moulds for the castings, but to achieve sufficient reliable power a modern turbine has had to be installed.
The conference centre, which is just yards from the famous Laxey Wheel, boasts an intricate scale model and exhibition of the Laxey Wheel and mine development. Refreshments are available from the adjacent tea rooms.
The village and river name of Laxey is from the Norse "laxa" meaning river and "lax" meaning salmon which migrate upstream from Laxey harbour favouring the Glen Roy tributary up Laxey Glen so the only salmon you are likely to see from the cache site is the metal fountain colloquially known as "Salmon Rusty" due to the unpainted nature of the metal!
To find stage two, the final, look for information about the gentleman who is now "Forever Fishing". If his date of birth is AB.CD.EF and he passed away on GH.I.JK, the coordinates you need are N54 14.(B)(E)(J-C) W004 24.(G+I) (B+D)(H).
Many thanks to the Ballannette Trust for assisting with the placement of this cache.