1910 High Blantyre Main Street showing Apocathery Hall
This old postcard from 1910 is titled incorrectly. Contrary to what it said when published, it’s not Auchinraith Road. Actually, it’s midway along Main Street looking Eastwards towards Hamilton. The postcard was later re-issued with the correct title. On the left would be modern day “Family Shopper” or people may remember the Stones Hotel. The gable end just after the low wall is where Wilson’s shop was, with Jim Paton’s barber shop on the top floor. The chemist used to be on the right hand side, although before then, it was shown as pictured as “The Apothecary Hall”.
Apothecaries often operated through a retail shop which, in addition to ingredients for medicines, sold tobacco and patent medicines. In its investigation of herbal and chemical ingredients, the work of an apothecary may be regarded as a precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry and pharmacology. Today, we would simply know these halls as “dispensing chemists shops”.