Just outside of Castletown, Balladoole is one of the Isle of Man’s most impressive ancient monuments.
Balladoole has been the site of many excavations that have revealed a number of significant finds including prehistoric flints, Bronze Age burials, Iron Age earthworks and early Christian lintel graves.
A Viking boat burial which dates back to between 850-950 AD was discovered in 1945 by a German refugee and a team from the internment camps based on the Island. The group were originally looking for an Iron Age hill fort but found the burial instead, lying within early Christian lintel graves, which contained a 36ft long Viking ship and the bodies of a man and woman.
In 1918, an ancient Keeill chapel dating between 900AD and 1000AD and a Bronze Age grave dating to 10000 BC were also discovered at the Balladoole site in an area now known as Chapel Hill.
Information boards are provided next to each section of the site and for more information on the history of the site as well as dioramas of the burial and artifacts from the excavation, visit the Viking Gallery in the Manx Museum in Douglas.
References:Linderhof is the smallest of the three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and the only one which he lived to see completed.
Ludwig II, who was crowned king in 1864, began his building activities in 1867-1868 by redesigning his rooms in the Munich Residenz and laying the foundation stone of Neuschwanstein Castle. In 1868 he was already making his first plans for Linderhof. However, neither the palace modelled on Versailles that was to be sited on the floor of the valley nor the large Byzantine palace envisaged by Ludwig II were ever built.
Instead, the new building developed around the forester's house belonging to his father Maximilian II, which was located in the open space in front of the present palace and was used by the king when crown prince on hunting expeditions with his father.