Port St Mary
| Port St Mary Manx: Purt le Moirrey | |
| Isle of Man | |
|---|---|
 Bay View Road in Port St Mary | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SC209677 |
| Location: | 54°4’30"N, 4°44’20"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,957 (2011) |
| Post town: | Isle Of Man |
| Postcode: | IM9 |
| Dialling code: | 01624 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Port St Mary |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Rushen |
Port St Mary is a village district in the south-west of the Isle of Man, near Port Erin. The village takes its name from the former Chapel of St Mary which is thought to have overlooked Chapel Bay in the village. In the 19th century it was sometimes called 'Port-le-Murray'.[1]
The village's population was recorded as 1,953 at the 2011 census.
About the village
Port St Mary Town Hall is an imposing stone building situated on the village's Victorian promenade at the upper end of the village and houses local government offices and a tourist information point, as well as the hall itself, which is used for performances and community gatherings and is available for private hire. The building is thought to stand on the site of the original Keeill Moirrey.
There are three pubs in Port St Mary: the Albert, the Bay View Hotel and The Station Hotel. The last of these is adjacent to Port St Mary railway station outside the main village and has recently re-opened.
Port St Mary railway station, just north of the village, is one of the stops on the surviving section of the Isle of Man Railway between Douglas and Port Erin. Steam trains operate on the line several times a day during the summer season, and stop at Port St Mary.
The harbour
Once a fishing and trading port, the village is still popular with tourists and fishermen, especially during the summer. The inner harbour, with its pier created in 1812,[2] is tidal and dries out from half-tide. The outer harbour, created when the Alfred Pier] was built in 1882 and is accessible at all tide states - unique amongst the Manx ports.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has had a lifeboat and station in Port St Mary since 1896. The current lifeboat, the Gough Ritchie II, lies to a permanent floating mooring inside the outer breakwater.
The Isle of Man Yacht Club is also based at Port St Mary harbour.
Sport and leisure
The village is home to the Port St Mary Golf Links, the Island's sole 9-hole golf course.
Chapel Bay, a sandy beach by the village, is used for recreation and bathing in the summer months.
Churches
The village church is St Mary's Church, which stands in the centre of the village. It is technically a 'chapel of ease' of the parish of Rushen, all within the Diocese of Sodor and Man.
Living Hope Community Church (formerly known as Port St Mary Baptist Church) is found to the north of St Mary's. The current church building was built in the early 2000s on the site of the former Port St Mary Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, which was completed in 1895, closed in 1970 and was demolished in 2000.[3]
In the lower part of the village, near the port, is the current Port St Mary Methodist Chapel, built in 1903 as a Primitive Methodist chapel and known as Mount Tabor. Another smaller former Wesleyan chapel, on the High Street, opened in 1835 and was demolished in the 1970s, with the village's garden of remembrance and war memorial occupying the site.
St Columba's, a Roman Catholic church, stands just outside the village and is shared with Port Erin.
National Dunkirk Memorial
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of her sinking, the starboard anchor of Mona's Queen, an Isle of Man Steam Packet Company vessel lost off Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo on which many seamen from the Port St Mary area served, was raised on 29 May 2010 and returned to the Isle of Man to form the centrepiece of a permanent memorial. On 29 May 2012, a memorial featuring the restored anchor and commemorating the losses in 1940 of Mona's Queen, King Orry and Fenella was opened in a ceremony at Kallow Point in Port St Mary, attended by representatives of local and island government, the Lieutenant Governor, the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company and the French Navy.
