High Blantyre 1935 map

A map from a lifetime ago. That is, if a lifetime is more than 80 years. Pictured is High Blantyre in 1935 and what a lot has changed. The picture is worth clicking on to magnify.

The town has changed very much. In this era, the High Blantyre Train Station was still there and functional, taking trains and local people from Blantyre to Strathaven, East Kilbride and Hamilton.  The train lines are clearly visible cutting through the town in raised embankments with a bridge at Main Street just outside where the Parish Church is. There’s no Jerusalem white houses in High Blantyre which instead was still only fields. The police station in High Blantyre would have been very modern, brand new only built the year before in an art-deco style.

There’s no sign of the commercial buildings or even any cemetery exiting Blantyre towards Hillhouse, instead the remains of the coal fields. Of course road infrastructure was very different then too, with a noticeable lack of the EK expressway, the main road to EK being Stoneymeadow. In the town itself, the Hunthill Road school is there with the bike sheds at the back adjacent to the railway. At Causeystanes, just off Kirkton, it was very much more built up with tenements all along Main Street and Broompark Road.