Longer opening hours for heritage sites in summer

Tours explaining the conservations works at Laxey Wheel are set to be held from April

The opening hours of three of the Isle of Man heritage sites have been extended during the 2024 season after feedback from visitors.

Manx National Heritage (MNH) began the reopening of its seasonal sites on Thursday, including Peel Castle and the Laxey Wheel.

Both of those attractions will see their opening hours extended during the peak summer months of June, July and August.

Cregneash in the south will open for an extra two and a half hours throughout the season.

MNH director Connie Lovell said the extension at the southern site would “make a huge difference” to those who wanted to visit the Sound as well.

While many of the organisation's sites had been closed since October, the period since had been a “hive of activity”, with much work carried out in maintenance and preparing the gardens at several sites including Rushen Abbey, she said.

Cregneash folk museum will be open for longer each day

Although stone masonry work at Peel Castle and Castle Rushen started during the winter months and work dealing with dry rot in the scullery at the Grove Museum in Ramsey are set to continue during the summer, more interpretation boards explaining those works are set to be added.

Ms Lovell said that was so that “our visitors can see the progress that’s been made”.

“Very often the work that goes on behind the scenes isn’t seen by the visitors, it’s only seen when it’s not right, and so they don’t actually see the wealth of work that goes on being the scenes,” she said.

Along with the opening of the Laxey Wheel for the season, a series of “hard hat tours” of the second phase of conservation works are set to be held after their popularity during the first phase of works last year.

Work to repair stone masonry at Peel Castle is ongoing

Pauline Wall, who recently took up the role of head of operations for MNH, said the sites represented “a fantastic offering” with “something for everyone”.

Being new to the island, she said she felt like she was “discovering something all the time”.

“I’m seeing it from the visitor’s eye at the moment, and that’s really exciting to share with the team and think about things in a different way,” she said.

As well as the Manx Museum and House of Manannan, which open all year round, MNH’s Laxey Wheel, Peel Castle, Castel Rushen and Cregneash site will be open daily throughout the summer.

Additional seasonal sites the Grove Museum and Rushen Abbey will be open during the afternoons Saturday to Wednesday and Thursday to Monday respectively during the same period.