A few people have recently asked me about the old ruined buildings at Auchentibber, as pictured recently here by Alex Rochead.
Located just up from the War Memorial at Auchentibber, on the same side, information on these buildings has been fairly sparse. However, using maps, i saw that they were on the 1859 map and judging from the ruins themselves, we can clearly create the picture that they were two storey and fairly sizeable, perhaps housing as many as 4 families. The 1859 map also shows gardens to the front of this house, bordering on to the main road at Sydes Brae. Around the time, Auchentibber very much had it’s own identity, a separate community from the rest of Blantyre on the upper Southern Slopes of the Parish. I have no dating evidence as to the year of their construction, but they were not on 1822 maps, so we can conclude they were built between 1823 and 1858.
By 1897, the buildings also had further homes on the right hand side and i can see that the Broomhouse quarry was situated in the field immediately behind it. Perhaps the homes belonged to miners? The structures were still shown on 1935 maps but by 1946 were ruined and smaller, co-inciding with the saturation of mining in the district.
Today, the buildings are even more dilapidated and grown over than these photos. I would love to know more. Do you have memories of these when they were more complete? Perhaps you’re aware of people who used to live in them and the holy grail, would certainly be a photo or name of the building, to retrieve census information.
Update: I have since found out these buildings were known as McKays Land. Please search that term on the website for more information.