Allangowan – was the name of a former house at 9 Auchinraith Road, which appears to have been constructed between 1897 and 1905. By 1905 the detached house was owned by Peter MacIntosh, then following his death between 1915 and 1920, passed to owner and occupier, Margaret MacIntosh.
It sat on the south side of Auchinraith Road at the end of a row of semi-detached homes. It was initially beside a track that led over the nearby railway to the south. In those early years, there was a neighbouring blacksmith, not far from tenements named Rosendale. Between 1920 and 1925, the building was sold on.
In 1925, Rev. D.W. Thomson occupied it. By 1930, according to the Valuation Roll, Allangowan belonged to the managers of the Blantyre Evangelical Union, part of the Congregational Church. That same year Rev. Thomas Shanks lived there, indicating it was likely the church manse.
The house was still there in the mid 1930’s, but is now demolished. It sat on land, which is now the monoblocked car park on the right of the entrance to Gavin Watson Printers.
From “Blantyre Explained” by Paul Veverka (c) 2017