On Friday 16th February 1900, a large number of friends of Mr. Alexander Gibson, (who had formerly been a merchant at Springwells), met in The Blantyre Arms (Mr. Bremner’s Public House).
Mr G Taylor presided and Councillor E.Nimmo acted as croupier. In the course of the evening Mr. Taylor in name of the subscribers, presented Mr. Gibson with a beautiful walnut writing desk and Mr. Hall also presented Mr Gibson to give to his wife, a handsome E.P biscuit box. Mr.Gibson gave a speech of thanks, a long toast list was read and altogether the supper was a great success.
This raised a few questions for me. Where was The Blantyre Arms and who was the owner and spirit merchant Mr. Bremner?
I found no entry in the valuation roll for The Blantyre Arms, so it may have been short lived or certainly its name. Similarly no entry for Bremner in the census records. One thing is certain, there is one pub in Springwells on the 1896 map. Assuming Mr Gibson of Springwells held his celebration in the local pub, it means a possibility that Kellys Bar, later to become Horseshoe, may have been called the Blantyre Arms at one time. Questions for another day, but for now it adds yet more one pub to my exclusively researched list of over 50 Blantyre Pubs.
Pictured is a nice colourised postcard of Glasgow Road around 1910 looking eastwards.
Partly from “Blantyre Explained” by Paul Veverka (c) 2016