Half a century on, it’s difficult to imagine Blantyre without the Priory Bridge Housing Estate. The excellent photos keep coming in, this time from either the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, photographed from a house on Northway, Coatshill, Blantyre. In the foreground is the relatively new tarmac road at Coatshill of Northway itself. Beyond that is the old Blantyre Ferme Road, looking over the fields towards Dechmont Hill in the background. The Westend is out the photo to the left.
These fields are now the Priory Bridge Housing Estate and this particular photo looks across to a position near the entrance to Dalcraig Crescent. On the far right is the former colliery bing of Spittal at Bardykes, at a time before it was reduced. Houses at Spittal can be seen nearby on Hamilton Road.
This is the changing face of Blantyre, a rural setting now very much built upon. I’ve put a modern photo below from the same interesting perspective.
With thanks to Gordon Cook for this photo, which hopefully like me you haven’t seen before.
