Panniers to Stiff Carts: Early Farm Transport in the Isle of Man

The range, evolution, and historical sequence of farm transport on the Island from the seventeenth to the twentieth century is discussed in this paper, in the context of the development of the road system and capacity of horse power. Human power resources included the use of the creel; thereafter the sledge and various forms of early cart, specifically the slide carr and the Irish carr, Island variations on the Celtic diaspora of such vehicles. The influence of the spread of the ‘Scotch cart’ is considered, and the evolution of the hay bogey and especially the ‘stiff cart’, a distinct type of cart (or at least a distinct nomenclature) associated with the Isle of Man. The collections of Manx National Heritage are briefly surveyed. As George Sturt pointed out, wagon (and so, too, cart) builder’s lore was ‘a tangled network of country prejudices’, with ‘each handing on his own little bit of understanding’, so that ‘the whole body of knowledge was mystery, a piece of folk knowledge, residing in the folk colle...