Community
Island Back on the Box Tonight
The show is on BBC1 at 8.30pm.
It’s become like a weekly event now as another part of the island is to feature on BBC.
After two brilliant shows focussing on Port St Mary and Douglas’ lifeboat volunteers, this week BBC1 is going underground.
Tonight’s episode of ‘Villages by the Sea’ will see host Ben Robinson explore Laxey’s greatest contribution to the world, with the possible exception of the village’s duck race, Lady Isabella herself, the Great Laxey Wheel.
The show meets local resident Matthew Boyd, who is working on repairing and restoring the 22-metre-wide great wheel and finds out how it transformed this small mining community to one of the most successful in the British Isles.
Ben Robinson also meets mining historian Peter Geddes who takes he deep underground to experience first-hand some of the conditions the miners faced.
Also, historian Dr Kathryn Ferry explains how the waterwheel became an unlikely tourist attraction and was a pioneer in the development of the industrial tourism craze that gripped the Victorian and Edwardian visitors to Laxey.
And to cap to all off, Ben takes a trip to Ham and Egg Terrace where industrious women took advantage of the tourists and created cafes in their own front rooms.
The show is on BBC1 at 8.30pm, just after Panorama and before The Capture, or it will be on iPlayer soon after.
