For as long as I can remember, I’ve been aware of this house; it sits alone on the north-west coast of the Isle of Man, and every year the sea gets closer. I don’t think it’s going to take more than a couple of powerful and persuasive winter storms to start the once dignified Manx farmhouse on its descent over the fifty-metre high sand cliffs and into the Irish Sea. The back porch is, literally, eight-metres away from destruction.
A few days ago I decided to find out who owns the house to see if I could get inside, so I put a post on Facebook asking for information – within twenty minutes I had all the details I needed, plus a bit of history on the dwelling. The owner, it turned out, had just left the island to go to South Africa. However, a friend contacted him on…