Gaze at the endless red brick of the Chester Street car park and it is difficult to imagine this was once a bustling area full of shops and homes.

And those who remember life in the 1970s and before in Douglas will no doubt look on the sterile landscape with a tinge of sadness.

The Well Road Hill area was once full of shops and houses which seeped down into Strand Street.

The Courties pram shop, Neild’s sweet shop and Howard’s cafe were among the businesses that plied their trade in the area.

I was too young to remember Well Road Hill in its heyday. My first memories of the area was when it was already a well-established car park with a supermarket.

It was Liptons then and I used to go round searching the tins which had the cheapest price labels on them which were always at the back. I later collected trollies when it was Safeway – one of my worst jobs ever.

To try and get a sese of the area back then I turned to the excellent Manx Nostalgia Facebook page and also spoke to Derry Kissack – of Purple Helmets fame – who was often in the area while working as a joiner.

‘I remember the houses where the car park is now,’ Derry said. ‘When I was serving my time as a joiner we used to go there in our vans and Felice’s ice cream factory.

‘We used to go to the artist Nicholson for some of the glass we needed if we were fixing windows.’

Indeed, John Nicholson was one of the best-known characters working in Well Road Hill.

His studio in the area and his gallery in Strand Street, Douglas, were well-known landmarks for the Manx artistic community.

He was the grandson of Manx artist John Miller Nicholson. Although self-taught, he went onto establish himself as one of the most successful Manx painters.

He taught at the Douglas School of Art and worked as a commercial artist, designing Manx stamps, coins and banknotes. John was also a leading member of the Isle of Man Art Society and its President until his death in 1988.

It is easy to fall into the trap of looking back at long lost areas with rose-tinted spectacles. Derry says it was not an easy place to live and work.

‘Well Hill Road was quite a maze back then,’ he recalled. ‘It was its own community really but it was also a rough spot with fighting going on.

‘There was a notorious family down there. Not even the police would go round the area at night. It was pretty tough.

‘There were lots of nice people though and working families in the Well Road Hill area in the 1960s.

‘Some of the houses had seen better days but there were some nice ones used as boarding houses just below Finch Road.’

Despite some people lamenting the loss of the bustling area, Derry says there was not a huge outcry when plans to level the area and redevelopment were announced.

‘There didn’t seem to be much opposition to people being moved out in preparation for the redevelopment,’ he said. ‘People were offered new corpy (Douglas Corporation) homes in other areas like Willaston or Anagh Coar.

‘The Barton family were one of the last to leave. I remember Jacob Barton saying he had extended is home when all he had done was put a whole through the empty property next door!

‘I was down with the digger once where the Safeway supermarket was and a rough sleeper had been sleeping there. I had to scrape all the rubbish out. I would say he was the last character down there.

Derry does feel much of the redevelopment in the last 50-60 years has not been great for Douglas.

‘In many ways Well Road Hill was a special place,’ he said. ‘There was a chip shop at the bottom and Quirk’s Bakery, as well as Felice’s. It was a lively working area. A lot of people worked and lived in the centre of Douglas.

‘But that has been destroyed now by moving everything to the industrial sites like Spring Valley. That’s what’s killed it.’

Members of the Manx Nostalgia Facebook page have also shared some of their memories of Well Road Hill.

John Caley McBride said: ‘The hill was a main thoroughfare for people coming from upper Douglas, particularly from the guest houses of that area which are no longer trading.

‘It was very busy at all times, but people found it difficult to negotiate after a night on the town and there were some funny sights and painful falls as they tried to make their way back to their guest houses.

‘It was fantastic fun in winter when the snow fell, as kids from all around would slide down on anything they could find. After a night’s frost the snow then turned to ice, making people’s walk to work in the morning very interesting indeed!’

The shops in Well Road Hill were the heartbeat of the area.

‘Lowey's newsagents on Finch Road had a large window on the side of their building facing onto Well Road Hill,’ Norman McBride said, ‘and in the summer months they would have on display toy yachts, fishing nets for rock pools, bucket spades, hand fishing lines, all to attract holiday makers as they made their way down the hill.’

Fran Martland lived in the area when she was a child as did many members of her family.

She said: ‘I lived with my mum, dad and two sisters in the cottage at Fayle’s yard. My dad was Jackie Fayle and he had a potato and veg round in the greater Douglas area.

‘My auntie and uncle lived at the top of Chester Street and my grandmother lived in Wellington Square. My uncle Robert Holmes was boxing champion of the Isle of Man and he went under the name of Battling Holmes. His training area was in the loft of Fayle’s yard.

‘I worked at weekends and school holidays in Felices ice cream factory. Across the road from our house was John Nicholson’s studio and also the paint shop which was run by him and his brother Tom.’

So, when you head to your car in Chester Street or traipse up Well Road Hill as it is today, try and imagine what it was 60 years ago.