What a picture this is! This beautiful photo is Auchinraith Road in 1914.
Children are walking back from school, most carrying satchels. The small amount of leaves on the trees would suggest this is October or March. The long shadow in the foreground is running exactly west-east (as Auchinraith Road runs to NE), suggesting the sun was low on the horizon at school “home time” on an afternoon.
Did you notice the pavement and lighting is only on one side of the road? I can see the raised railway through the middle and Auchinraith School in the background. The white building on the right Auchinraith Pit or perhaps the pit rows? The trees are long gone.
Photographed from near the nursery at the corner of Main Street, the houses on the left were built first, existing in 1896, a decade before those on the right were built.
There’s still a familiarity to this whole scene and something says to me this picture is even nicer than it is now, without any lampposts and overhead wires.
Photo Courtesy: Gordon Cook