In 1896, the road we know today as Station Road from the Station up to Glasgow Road, was almost entirely rural. A rough track, surrounded by fields, hedgerows and trees. Indeed on the eastern side there wasn’t one property or building from the station southwards until you got to the old Toll House at the corner of Glasgow Road (where the current barbers now is).
On the western side, it was just as rural, with expansive fields beyond the hedgerow, the only properties being the former Woodhouse and Blantyre Works Farm. This was undeveloped Blantyre but the matter of walking on that track from the Station up to Stonefield was a talking point of the time.
Darkness was the particular issue because there were no street lamps. Railway passengers alighting in Blantyre would stumble their way up the road in darkness, towards the lighting of Glasgow Road. It was a walk people didn’t look forward to and newspaper Hamilton Herald brought this attention to all of their readers, asking directly for authorities to install gas lamps.
It was a matter for the Parish Council to consider and one which would impact ratepayers elsewhere in Blantyre. The paper asked local Councillors to stop pleading ignorance and to do something about it, a further appeal going out to them in November 1896. It would however be a few more years before gas lamps were installed at Station Road, following the construction of handsome, detached villas.
AI illustrates this story, imagining the scene 127 years ago.
