Ballachurry is the home of Captain of the Parish of Rushen, Stan Clucas, and his wife, Pam. It is not the first time their orchard field has played host to celebrations of a royal milestone.
Stan says: ‘I think we’ve done them all, except the Coronation, I was a bit young then, but since then I’ve done all the Jubilees.’
Twenty years ago, Stan made corn dollies in the shape of a crown and sceptre as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations and they were on display at the garden party.
It is all part of the rich history of Ballachurry where there has been a farm since the late 1600s.
Stan and his late brother, Alan, took over Ballachurry from their father who had farmed the land before them: the family have been at Ballachurry for nearly 100 years.
When Stan retired twenty years ago, he and Pam turned one of their fields adjacent to the orchard into a wetlands area, digging out pools, planting thousands of trees and laying paths so that people could walk around it. This became the popular Ballachurry Nature Reserve, now run by the Manx Wildlife Trust with the commissioners helping with the maintenance. As part of the garden party celebrations, members of the Trust were running tours around the reserve.
The Clucases have also used Ballachurry orchard to benefit Isle of Man Anti-Cancer, a charity Pam has been involved with for more than 40 years, holding events there to raise funds for the charity.
During the last two spring Covid lockdowns when no events could take place, they opened the orchard to anyone to go and have a walk around and pick a bunch of daffodils for themselves.
In 2019 Arbory and Rushen Parish commissioners joined forces to form one body to govern the parishes and Stan shared the hosting duties for the garden party with Raymond Gawne, Captain of the Parish of Arbory.
Kirree Jenkins, who is vice chair of Arbory and Rushen Commissioners, said: ‘We were expecting about 300 - 350 people to attend but we must have topped 1,000 easily. We had a whole field full of parked cars and many other people arriving on foot. ‘The commissioners would like to thank Pam and Stan Clucas and all our helpers.
‘The garden party turned out to be just what we had hoped: a fantastic community event that involved lots of charities and other organisations and everyone had a ball.’