1978 Craig Street Re-devlopment

1978 Glasgow Road looking to Craig Street before Asda took this ground over.

This photo may bring back some memories. Pictured in 1978 is the bottom of Craig Street with Glasgow Road in the foreground. Where do I even start with this photo? Blantyre has changed SO much since then. To put this in context, the mini is parked on what was Central/Turners Buildings. The houses are all no longer there, demolished to make was for the Asda Car park .You can see some of them are boarded up in readiness for development. Out the picture to the right beyond the back gardens of the boarded house was the Stonefield wee school or infant school. The boarded up house now sits exactly where the shopping trolley canopy is today, outside Asda entrance, the other houses would have been in the modern car park. Clydeview Shopping Centre, the bank and Skate shop now sit on that grassy cleared area. Those people must be walking that pavement thinking “change is coming”.

If this is the price of progress in Blantyre. No thanks. These do look perfectly good homes and how much more fitting it would have been to have kept a busy, lively and thriving Glasgow Road with all its local businesses and to have put Asda on the outskirts somewhere like were Lidl is now. It makes me sad.

Glasgow Road being redeveloped changed Blantyre massively and beyond recognition. It may be very hard for the youngest generation to look at these pictures and visualise what used to be there. So, I’ll be bringing you more photos of Glasgow Road from the 1970’s in the coming days.

On Social media some excellent comments are given:

• KellyAnn Maguire Ramsay I think this looks like a nicer scene than the current one.
• Jeanette Allardyce Ward Totally agree with this post. Blantyre was better before development. Our love belt park has been taken away too  x
• Russell Boyd So basically they done to bantyre what the town planners did to glasgow. But on a smaller scale legalised vandalism i like to call it
• Arlene Campbell Today people want to live within towns with village feel/main street/community. If left it could have been re developed so differently ,maintaining that old village feel… all the old buildings and shops I remember as a child, none remain
• Patricia Hutcheson Docherty My sister lived in Craig St. I remember it looking like this and all the changes taking place. Great pic
• Henry Hambley This picture brings back so many memories. I seem to remember that a tenement building stood at this part of Glasgow road. Just near the junction with Craig street was Dr Adam Stewart’s surgery. It was basically a room and kitchen with the front room.
• Margaret Farmer I left Blantyre in July 1977. Do you have any photos of the post office and the zebra crossing by the park?
• Andrew Little Damn sight better then than the disgrace it is now. Sad to say but glad I bailed out in 81
• Carol Crombie It looks very much like what remains of Church Street – such a shame they were all pulled down in the name of modernisation
• Natalie Ward All the photos I have seen of ‘old Blantyre’ on here look like it was much better… Makes me wish I was born then to see it as I know know it the way it is now… It seems dull, ‘dreich’ and drab in comparison – you can from the photos there would have been more character and ‘community’ feel…
• Monica Boath Growing up in Craig street at this time but can barely remember it since I was a toddler ! I do vaguely remember asda not being there and there being more houses but that’s about all! X
• Maureen Chalmers Here here! Living in church street and you can see how Craig street was very similar lay out – need to do something to clear the waste ground at end of our street & bring back Glasgow Road!
• Kathleen Duffy I lived in Craig Street and remember all the houses on both sides from the miners welfare right down to Glasgow Road. There were two small shops Browns and Gibsons both wee general stores selling foodstuff on the row of houses just down from the miners welfare
• Marie Callaghan Bell Awe remember Glasgow Road full off shops, cafes, they were the days, now destroyed by greed may I add x
• Susan McMurray If only we could bring it all back how much nicer and calmer it would be x
• Jeanette Allardyce Ward I used to visit someone at bottom of Craig street on right going down with my wee auntie. Also rber there was an alterations shop on left hand side
• Stephen Allan It’s great to be able to see what was there before Asda was built. I wasn’t born till 1984 so only remember Glasgow Road as it is today but from what a lot of people have been saying they seem to think it was better back then.
• Bobby Mckean Blantyre got Asda and lost its character and soul. As a trader on Glasgow road for the last 25 years I have watched it systematically break down and deteriorate bit by bit . Blantyre is still paying the price for Asda 

  Im enjoying jigsaw in the old Blantyre. With all your old photos and explanations 
  Creating a vision of what is should have been.
• Davy McAdam brilliant.thank you.
• Patrick Sanaghan That’s our old house behind that wall with the greenhouse.13 Craig street.
• Sally Jamieson Im with you on this Bobby Mckean.
• Janice Brewster Asda has not brought many qualities to blantyre lost its character shame !