The Blantyre Parish Council met on the evening of Thursday 17th October 1895, with Neil Douglas presiding. The purpose was to discuss the right of way at Larkfield, a rough track joining Broompark Road to Hunthill Road. The development of this track eventually became Watson Street.
This wasn’t a council adopted road and care had to be taken in any discussion around it, due to the private ownership of Mr Bannatyne of nearby Milheugh.
In the 1890’s, this roadway aside from the pub at the corner, was a single line of small houses from Broompark Road halfway up the northern side of the track to a noticeable break halfway up the road, a point which is still apparent even today. There were no homes beyond this, just fields leading up to Hunthill Road, though the map of the era suggests a rough track perhaps for driving animals existed. The bottom part of the road was a busy populated area with homes, bakery, pub and looking over to Dixons Pit 4. These houses were not of the best quality and the track had a reputation even then of being in a deplorable state with the suggestion that sanitation was the worst in Blantyre.
At the meeting, Mr Maxwell, the Clark explained he had written to 4 feuars and the tenant farmer, Mr Miller but had received no reply. A letter was then read from Mr Dick who owned the single row of houses on Broompark Road turning around the corner on to the right of way. Mr Dick was happy enough for the council to adopt the road, on condition they built a fence enclosing in his properties and kept the road in a proper state of repair. Getting the opinions of others in the area was also of importance.
On the other side where the public house sat (Donnin/The Olive location), owner Mr John Paterson was willing to give the council permission to create a new road, as long as they built a small brick wall or fence along the side of his public house, from Broompark Road right to a shed at the triangular pointed end of his property, separating the roadway from his land. A wall which still exists today.
The tenants and landowners had owner conditions if the council wanted to create a new right of way. Putting in proper drainage. Removing Mr Bannatyne’s marshy land at the Hunthill Road side of the proposed street and creating a cesspool, to collect sewage, rather than letting residents pour it in the streets.
Funding would be needed for this work, and so a letter was read from the Edinburgh Investment Building society which stated that they did not support a full right of way through to Hunthill Road, but that they did support the council putting in a pavement on one side with a granite kerb and making the road in a better state of repair.
Some debate at the meeting arose, prompted by the expense the rate payers would need to pay if the track was to become a right of way or eventually a street. Some thought there was no great worth in opening up the road, and those who stood to benefit like Mr Paterson at the public house, were those imposing expensive conditions like walls and fences. There was some agreement though on the need for a pavement. The road had been allowed to be in filth for a number of years and it was thought strange that neither the council nor landowners had done anything until the 1890s.
Even the medical officer had stated that it would be beneficial for sanitation to put the road into good order and consider drainage. In other areas landowners had been asked to put the road outside their properties in good condition and once that had been done, the council took it over, therefore removing the landowners expense in maintaining it thereafter.
Mr Davidson reminded everybody that they needed Mr Bannatyne on board with discussions, as a primary landowner. Mr McAnulty then raised the need for the road again, stating that nearby at Bardykes and Hunthill Road junction offered a route up to Braehead and Milheugh without and it was only 100 yards away. More like 400 yards was the reply.
There was discussion that the County Council should be involved as the road had a good six inches of mud. How the landowners can get in and out of their properties was beyond the comprehension of some of the Parish Council members. Mr Louden stated that though there were other insanitary buildings throughout Blantyre, none had a street like this outside them!b Sewage flowed down the open drains at the track sides. Mr Jackson said some other streets in Larkfield were in as bad as state and he himself had gone over his heels in waste and water. Without agreement on the motion, the subject was dropped from this particular meeting, but it would soon come back in the following months with the Parish Council eventually conceding that a pavement and wall would be needed and putting the road into better order.
In the next few years which followed, the upgraded road was given a name, Watson Street which initially was a cut de sac. In the 1930’s homes were built at the upper part of the street, including the creation of a new lane through to Stonefield Crescent and the street for the first time connected Broompark Road to Hunthill Road. In subsequent decades after the clearance of the old properties, new, modern detached homes were built at the part of the street which was adopted by the council.
Even today there are two distinct halves of Watson Street, with noticeable differences in the type of carriageway. The part maintained by the council and the lower part nearer Broompark Road, which was never adopted, proposed to be maintained by the landowners themselves.
Pictured in 1952, over half a century later is the established right of way, what we now know as Watson Street, Blantyre. My colour photo from 2000 shows the wall, the unadopted lower road and the one pavement and kebline.
