We hadn't been to Groudle Glen since May 2023. That time, we'd done a nice little circuit on foot, along the river and along the coast, but we'd not been able to try out the steam railway (or the cafe).

So when we spotted that there was a Steam Gala happening today, with all four of the little trains on display, no other possible way of spending Sunday got a look-in.

I knew little of the history of Groudle Glen (story of my life on the Isle of Man, it seems).

But Chris Callow fills us in very nicely. It all goes back to the Victorian tourist industry, and specifically, to Richard Maltby Broadbent, who turned a bit of marshy scrubland into a tourist attraction by planting thousands of trees and creating little walking paths. He also factored in a hotel.

This was the 1890s, and things were buzzing: The hotel went up in July 1893; the glen opened the following month; and the first Manx Electric Railway trams rolled into Groudle in September.


Broadbent also set up a small zoo down on the coast, housing sea lions, polar bears, and brown bears. (On our previous visit, we'd looked down from the cliff top, and wondered what the concrete remains down there were. Well, they were where the sea lions hung out.). Animal welfare was not much of a thing in the Victorian era, it seems, and the pictures on display at the little exhibition area at the railway terminus are pretty sad.

Anyway, it was all very successful, and Broadbent decided the next thing the site needed was a two-foot-gauge steam railway, which duly opened in May 1896. It carried 10,000 passengers in its first two months, and as the popularity of this little excursion continued, a second locomotive was added.


After World War I, the railway fell on harder times. There were various experiments with battery-powered locomotives, but nothing really worked, and it closed in 1967. Everything lay dormant until 1982 when the Isle of Man Steam Railway Supporters' Association began a massive restoration programme. What they achieved is quite extraordinary, and the line reopened in 1992.

It was a top-notch day out:




















And of course, you get back to Douglas the way you came: On the Manx Electric Railway.


Looking forward to the next Steam Gala already.