It once carried many happy holidaymakers to the summer season cabaret shows at the clifftop hotel overlooking Douglas Bay.

For 10p you could take a ride on the public lift from just off Central Promenade to the Falcon Cliff Hotel.

Many remember will doing so - and those who took a trip on it as a child may recall quite a scary if exhilarating experience.

The lift last operated in the summer of 1990.

But remarkably, 35 years on, the little white cliff car is still there, forlornly perched at the top of its incline in the derelict remains of the top station.

Swamped by the ever-encroaching undergrowth, it hopelessly awaits its next passenger who will never come.

Landowner Dandara recently secured the top station with a padlocked door after incidents in which urban explorers tried to access the site.

A sign on the door makes it clear that visitors are not welcome and any trespassers will be prosecuted.

The castellated Falcon Cliff Hotel, now headquarters to finance firm Stonehage Fleming, was built in the 1880s and was once one of the capital’s busiest night-time entertainment venues.

A first cliff lift to the hotel, for use only by guests, was constructed in 1887 but this was dismantled a decade later and re-erected at Port Soderick.

Then in 1927 a second public funicular was built by William Wadsworth Ltd of Bolton. It is this that survives - just - to this day.

The little passenger cabin ran for 120ft on a 5ft track inclined at 60 degrees.

Powered by electricity, the line was converted from DC to AC in 1950.

Footage from the urban explorer’s visit shows that the power equipment remains intact at the top station.

On Palace View Terrace, the entrance to the bottom station is blocked and the steps alongside that you could climb as an alternative to taking the public lift have long since disappeared under vegetation.

You can see footage of a 1985 visit to the cliff lift by local historian Charles Guard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6aSgat2knU&t=14s