This wonderful picture is from February 1968. The residents of Rosendale Building, Low Blantyre went to the County Buildings in Hamilton to complain about the state of the housing block and the delay in getting them re-housed. Mothers of young children complained that the chimneys were ready to fall, there were no toilets in many apartments, rain was leaking into the rooms and part of the roof was only protected by a tarpaulin.

Robert Stewart recently told me, “The building was probably badly damaged during the January hurricane. Quite a number of buildings were damaged that night. I lived in Stonefield Cottage at the time and was woken by an almighty crash as the chimney stack on the gable of The Old Original crashed to the ground. I’m almost certain the same happened at Mayberry Place.”

Built in 1896 as state of the art housing in Low Blantyre, by the late 1960’s Rosendale had seen its best years. Indeed, the complaints were acted upon and people started to be re-housed later in 1968. By late 1977, Rosendale was scheduled for demolition. You can read more about the history of Rosendale here http://blantyreproject.com/2014/01/20/rosendale-tenements-springwell/