This postcard was given to me by Blantyre Project reader Margaret Stewart in January 2020. (Its amazing that people can pass things over to me in my garden from the park!)

It is of course Craighead Viaduct (not Greenhall). The photo dates from around 1904, though the colourised postcard is from 1909. Simply titled ‘Blantyre Viaduct’, Bothwell is on the left hand side and Bothwell Bridge would be not far from this location. The pillars spanning the River Clyde upstream of Craighead are no longer there anymore with exception of the riverbank structures.

Contrary to what you may have read on other places online, trains ran over the TOP of this viaduct, not in the latticework below. That was a pedestrian walkway. I wondered looking at this why the photographer hadn’t captured a train going over it which would have been more interesting, but I suppose moving vehicles may have blurred the original photo back when in those days the requirement was always to be very still.

Its a great photo. I hadn’t seen this colourised before and another reminder again of what Blantyre has lost.