Mount Murray

Mount Murray
This article is about the hill on the Isle of Man. For the mountain in New South Wales, see Mount Murray, New South Wales. For the area in the Wimbledon grounds, see Henman Hill.

Mount Murray is a hill often referred to simply as The Mount, located on the northern border of Santon, Marown and Braddan parishes on the Isle of Man. Mount Murray is also home to the Chibbenagh Plantation and nine of the eighteen holes of the Mount Murray Golf Club.

Today, a Hotel, Golf and Country Club in the grounds of which the estate of Mount Murray has been erected. These dwellings were built under a 'tourism' approval and formed the centre of several investigations into why people were purchasing and living in the houses. The suggestion that 'something was not right' was finally quashed but only after some £1 million of investigatory monies were spent. The Commission of Enquiry Reports can be read via the Isle of Man Government website.

The hill was originally known as Ais Hólt meaning Holt's Hill and giving rise to derivations of the name to Ash hole (1703), Ashold (1734) and Ashole (1739). Several families of the latter name lived in the Castletown area in the 16th Century [1]. It was a Norse surname and is still found in Kildare and Wicklow, Ireland.

Landscape and archaeology

Close to Mount Murray lies the The Broogh Fort (54°08′09″N 4°34′39″W / 54.135776°N 4.577453°W / 54.135776; -4.577453) and also The Braaid.

The Graveyard, the fifth fairway of the Mount Murray golf course, is on the site of a prehistoric burial ground. The burial ground became the site of a keeill built sometime after the 9th century and the area later became known as Speke Farm. The keeill and some of the surrounding burials were excavated in 2006 by Time Team.

References

Coordinates: 54°08′21″N 4°33′39″W / 54.13917°N 4.56083°W / 54.13917; -4.56083


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