Demolition of the large house on the corner of Fort St, Douglas, Isle of Man,...

On the back of this photograph John James Frowde writes, "(Mid-winter film) Taking down the large house, on the corner of Fort St long occupied by Mr J Sharp the coal merchant, whose coal yard, later Knowles, is on the site of the old Hospital. The nurces were of the Sairey Gamp type: untrained and unskilled, but as Dr T A Woods, (house surgeon there when I was a small boy,) told me in much later years, were kindly and helpful souls. In the smallpox epidemic of 1875, the Doctor had to coffin the dead with his own hands and bribe hobblers to convey the bodies to St George's yard on hand-carts, previously well primed with rum for the trip. Here is seen part of the cobbled area of the Square, the largest patch of cobblestones remaining for very many years."