In March 1892, initial underground blasting work was taking place for the construction of the new Glasgow Subway. (or underground railway as it was then known).
On Friday 4th March 1892, workmen were at the Great Western Road location and underground, were surprised to find a large, existing hollow cavity about 20 feet by 12 feet wide and varying in height from 5 foot to 7 foot. In the south end, they found some very crude attempts at boat building, namely a fossilised canoe!
The discovery strongly suggests the pre-history canoe lay within an ancient channel or floodplain connected to the River Kelvin long before before urbanisation reshaped the landscape.
Now, what has this to do with Blantyre? Well, around the discovery was a great quantity of encrinities (known as stone lillies) as pictured. This greatly puzzled geologists of the time, for the only other known location for these in 1892 in Scotland was at the limestone quarries of Auchentibber, Blantyre. These encrinities were fossilised remains of crinoids.
The discovery made the national news.
