By late 1893, Lanarkshire County Council Sanitary authorities had issued an order to Blantyre Works owner Joseph Monteath to clean up the village.
The order asked for Monteath to attend to certain improvements on the housing there and in the open surrounding spaces in order to bring health standards up to improved conditions. This was the last decade of Blantyre Works, in the form of Monteith’s model village. The glory days of pristine whitewashed, well kept buildings already long gone, coinciding with the decline of the weaving industry.
Mr Monteath refused to comply in December 1893, stating that the remedies and proposals were far too extensive, (which likely translated as being too expensive). Mr Monteath asked for the council to rethink and make concessions if they didn’t want to be ‘tested’ further with similar responses.
I can find almost no evidence of Monteath improving Blantyre Works housing, properties or open spaces in the following decade and suspect that the Works were becoming a liability. Being sold off shortly after, weaving family accommodation slowly gave over to incoming mining families and many of the mill buildings were demolished just 10 years later.
Pictured in later decades are some of the remaining homes at Blantyre Works with the old works Cemetery which had a sleeper fence put up around the south side in early 1894 to protect against ‘mischief.’
