A letter sent into the Hamilton Advertiser in November 1891 by a Blantyre Resident in Stonefield.
“Sir,—I am pleased to see in your last Saturday’s issue “I would respectfully ask the railway officials what has become of their promise made six or seven years ago to build a new station? I would also draw the attention of the Railway Company, County Council, or the laird of Auchinraith to the state of the roads leading to railway station. If the station itself is bad the roads leading to it are ten times worse.”
“A large portion, if not the largest portion of the passengers come from Stonefield, and the only near hand cut to the station is either by Old Brickfield Road (what would become John St) or Forrest Street. These roads are not bad except at the junction with the Railway Co. footpath, but here it is something awful. “Up to the ankles in mud” is a mild way of putting it. It compels us in Stonefield to take a much longer road to the N.B. Station at Greenfield rather than wade through such a mire. The station main road is not a whit better, and I hope that whoever is to blame for this state of matters will see that no time is lost in putting things right.”
We take solid roads for granted these days, but its clear back in 1891, people had many cause for complaints about the mud and this serves as a good description for Station Road at the time.
