Looking to Victoria Street and High Blantyre Cemetery – 1955

I have marked up this 1955 aerial photo to show some interesting features and how much Blantyre has changed at that location. Looking towards Victoria Street and beyond to the High Blantyre Cemetery, westwards.

The houses at Welsh Drive and Victoria Street int he foreground are recognisable and haven’t changed much, but beyond Victoria Street, highlighted in yellow on this photo was the hospital, with the High Blantyre Cemetery just over the wall. In this photo you can just see the start of the hospital building which unfortunately is mostly behind one of the Victoria Street homes.

1936 Map showing what was to become Burnbrae Road

Highlighted in purple is the abandoned railway, cutting through the centre of Blantyre, on roughly what was later to become Burnbrae Road. In this era though, the railway continued past High Blantyre cemetery and over Broompark Road, leading to the grass area now beside the John Ogilvie RC Church, then still the Jopes House. Orchid’s Broompark Farm is also pictured but no longer there today. The railway would have led up to a junction at Hunthill, either going towards the viaduct at Greenhall, or left towards the High Blantyre Station.

In the very far background on the right, is the tenement building on Broompark Road, directly across from the entrance to Springfield Crescent, which I believe was home to the Graham family. I’ve attached a 1936 map of this whole area which puts the photo into a 2D context, and easier to see the scale and position of the hospital.

On social media:

Henry Hambley In 1955 the railway line was not abandoned. I remember being at Auchinraith School and there being trains of coal wagons going up and down presumably to Dixon’s pit.

The Blantyre Project Hi Henry. I’ll check back tonight. I know the last of Dixons pits to close was Pit 1 in High Blantyre on 10th August 1957, with pits 2, 3 and 4 closing earlier. WIll check back when Pit 4 closed. You may very well have witnessed the last of the exhausted coal being sent away.

The Blantyre Project Henry – The railway line to Larkfield was definitely not in operation by the time of this photo. It branched off just in front of this photo and Larkfield Colliery was not in operation in 1955, closing some 20 years earlier. The wagons you saw, must have been the coal wagons heading on the left hand branch of the line heading up to High Blantyre Station and on to the railway lines to Dixons High Blantyre Pit 1. This main section of the railway was still live and carried coal until 1957.