Ramsey, The Isle of Man

Anyone making a visit to the Isle of Man for a holiday will want to do some sort of tour of the whole island. It's just like arriving in a new hotel room and having a peek in all the cupboards.

Any visitors' tour will start with the Isle of Man's capital Douglas, which is a mixed bag of seaside resort, harbour, business centre and normal British suburbia. Cute Castletown will be next - the best town on the Isle of Man with an upmarket feel, genuinely quaint winding streets around an old harbour and castle.

Then it starts getting more challenging - Peel has a spectacular castle and yet another harbour, Port Erin is on  sandy bay and more seasidey, St Mary's has fishing boats - but all of them have a tired air of traditional resorts slightly past their sell-by date. That's not unique to the Isle of Man of course, but it's when you reach Ramsey, 'Capital of the North', the island's second city, that this tiredness becomes most apparent. 


Peeling paint
Now I quite like peeling paint, drunks sitting on benches and quirky shops selling stuff no-one wants, but Ramsey makes places like Ilfracombe and West-Super-Mare seem lively, smart and cosmopolitan. A regeneration scheme has just started as I write this but there's a lot of work to do…

Once Ramsey was known as an attractive traditional resort on the north east coast. It had yet another old harbour and even now there's an admirable huge leisure area, Mooragh Park, with a boating lake and gardens. All the basics are here. The scenery is sensational. North Barrule mountain stands above the outskirts and a chain of peaks leads off to Snaefell in the distance. To the north there's lovely rolling green farmland, nice villages and prosperous farms.

But the strange run-down atmosphere of Ramsey starts at the deserted sea front which has a long promenade without a single bar, cafe or facility of any kind. There hardly seem to be any hotels, B&Bs or guest-houses in this stretch that was surely full of them 50 years ago. There's an old iron pier heading 2km out to sea but it has not a single amusement or catering on it. It has long since closed down for safety reasons.

Social adventures
The pubs around the harbour are interesting social adventures. I was made to feel most unwelcome in one inn for example, where the barmaid served me a pint of beer that tasted so bad I couldn't managed more than a few sips. "It's an acquired taste," she smirked when I complained. At another, we were the only customers and found the barmaid lounging in the snug. "I'm in my little corner watching Corrie on the telly," she explained. The George has a most bizarre feature - ceiling lights that flicker on and off constantly. Anywhere else they'd send for an electrician. Here they have put up a sign saying "the lights flicker because there's a fault with the electrics".

The old high street is a mix of cheap take-aways and quirky old shops, and it leads to a rather attractive old square. It's clear this was a grand place in Victorian times. Now there are weeds, graffiti and empty spaces where buildings have been demolished and not replaced. I spotted a gang of youths in football shirts clambering over the roofs like feral animals. 

In fact Queen Victoria and Prince Albert did visit Ramsey. Although Victoria was tactless enough to stay on board the Royal Yacht, Albert stepped ashore. He didn't clamber over any roofs but climbed the small hill overlooking the town. This stupendous achievement was celebrated by building the 45ft Albert Tower which still looms over Ramsey.

Funeral parlour
Other things for visitors to note about Ramsey - there's the northern terminus of the Manx electric railway, the beginning of the mountain section of the Snaefell Mountain Road used for the Isle of Man TT races and the start of the Millennium Trail - a scenic footpath that runs the length of the island. Errrm, anything else? Yes, I liked the Spice of India Indian restaurant but didn't have a chance to try the interesting Brazilian take-away. I also spotted a very prominent funeral parlour, a police transit van on duty in the centre every night and lots of people reading the Daily Express. 

And then there's the property prices. Whereas England's sad old resorts are treasure troves of property bargains, in Ramsey you can pay up to £4 million for fairly ordinary houses. What is going on? I suppose it's elderly rich immigrants from the UK who have pushed up the prices. And when they arrive they they don't go in the town much. Perhaps as someone told me in a pub: "They sit inside their bungalows eating Marmite sandwiches waiting to die." Well, I don't know what they really do because I didn't see any smart wealthy looking people in the whole of the north of the island.

Yet, and there has to be a 'yet', I found Ramsey oddly compelling. The beach is a bit crap, there's nowhere to go but I think it's harmless and could get better. I'll come back to check on its progress. And viewed from the top of North Barrule it looks fabulous, glistening in the sun on its shallow sandy bay, with the town dotted in the trees around the expanse of the boating lake and harbour. Up close Ramsey may look like grunge... but from afar it looks grand.