1890s Auchinraith Curling team shared by Gordon Cook
You may remember reading recently about my visit to the old Auchinraith Curling pond. You can read about that here. http://blantyreproject.com/2014/09/04/lost-at-whistleberry-curling-pond/
Blantyre man Gordon Cook recently read the article and has kindly passed me this amazing photo of the Curling team at Auchinraith. Likely to be taken in the late 1890s, it shows various men playing a game of curling, on a frozen pond which was called the Whistleberry Curling pond. The pond was known to be formed in 1898 and does appear on a map of that era. Having visited the scene recently in 2014, I recognised the topography straight away and have no doubt at all, it is the same location.
The pond ran in a SE to NW direction with the Wellshaw Burn running alongside. However, the photo put the flooding mechanism firmly into context, pictured at the left. The sluice wheel would have been opened to
2014 Whistleberry Curling pond photo by P Veverka
flood the field, then a section of the ice later dressed and polished to form the playing surface. The wheel in the location shown , meant that the flooding mechanism was actually fed off the nearby Parkburn, not the Wellshaw Burn which is also nearby. In this photo, just out the picture at the top right on the hill, would have stood Auchinraith House.
The flattened area now looks like this today.