1859 Little Udston
In June 2015, I was contacted by Elizabeth Lorimer who lives in Toronto, Canada. Elizabeth asked, “Hello. In my genealogy research, I have found ancestors living at Little Udston, in the civil parish of Hamilton, in the 1871 census of the Civil Parish of Hamilton. Their neighbors in the census lived at Udston Farm. Are you able to tell me, please, were these sites in Blantyre? Many thanks for any information you may have on that.”
Little Udston was ever so slightly outwith Blantyre Parish, but only just a few hundred yards! It is often thought to have been in Blantyre but of course was in Hamilton Parish. This 1859 map shows how isolated Little Udston was, with exception of an elevated railway above. The dotted line on the left is the Red Burn Stream which also forms the boundary and to the left is Blantyre. At the time of this map, prominent family The Jacksons owned Little Udston, which is now part of Hillhouse.
Elilzabeth went on to say, “My family there in 1871 were Hamiltons, and the other farm families I can see on the same page included Turners, Craigs, and Millars, also various “farm servants” with surnames McNeil, Dennistown, MacDonald, and Irvine, also something like “Cavanow”, which could of course be Cavanaugh. None of them could have guessed that 150 years later they would be the subject of such study, I am sure.”
On social media:
Jim Cochrane My Gran was born there.