On Saturday 7th January 1893, a particularly significantly cold snap swept over Central Scotland. The cold was enough to freeze the River Clyde the whole width between each riverbank. At Blantyre Mills the river froze from the weir all the way back upstream to the North British Railway (Craighead) Viaduct, a sight which had never been encountered before in living memory (or since!)
Over that huge distance, the river formed one solid sheet of ice, which was by all accounts quite deep and safe to walk on. That Saturday night, a heavy coating of snow fell on the ice, which in itself started to freeze over the ice sheet. The river that weekend became a hive of activity and became quite lively with people taking to the ice.
Many shoulders put in the effort to sweep large areas of snow, clearing room for ice skaters and several ice rinks were formed. Hundreds of skaters took up a challenge of trying to skate 1 mile along the river, a feat which many accomplished easily.
Some of the villages took great glee in forming ice rinks by 10am and the air was filled with shouts of “Soop up! Soop up!” All day long, large crowds patronised the improvised ice rinks and no accidents were reported. Impromptu curling matches started the results being “Proudfoot 35, Hamilton 21, Andrew Weir 17 and Mr Keir 13”.
128 years later…..Blantyre Weir on a frozen snowy day in February 2021 was captured here by Kelly Ann McCormick, suitably illustrating this story.
