The northern end of the Isle of Man is a low plain, a legacy of the Ice Age, consisting of boulder clay, sands, and gravels, bordered round the coast by a range of sandhills rising from 100 ft. at the break made by the Lhen to over 300 ft. where they cluster around the little village of Kirk Bride. The mouth of the Lhen at a distance of five miles from the foot of the hills, the pre-glacial coastline of the Island, is the reputed landing-place of the Scandinavian settlers who came sailing down from the western isles of Scotland; and for their small and shallow vessels the gravel beach, still known by their name of ‘the Ayres’, was admirably adapted.