In December 2016, Lynsey Milne contacted me saying, “My grans name is Margaret Little born 1918 to Andrew Gilmour and Mary Ann ( maiden name Murphy) she has 7 brothers and 2 sisters. I dont know if any of her siblings are still alive but i have some names if thats any help? I really […]
This photo dates from around 1976 or 1977. It’s the end of an era for Glasgow Road as many buildings lay empty and vacant, ready for demolition. Some business still traded through right up until the point of neighbouring properties being demolished. The scene looks eastwards towards Hamilton and putting it in context, the photographer […]
On 3rd August 1933, a Blantyre man, John Henderson, of 16 Alpine Street was awarded £2O damages, and 18s 5d expenses, against Mrs Margaret Canning, or M’Keown, of 24 Alpine Street, Blantyre. This was for a slander action raised in Hamilton Sheriff Court. John claimed on the grounds of injury to his character and in respect that Mrs Canning falsely […]
An elderly woman had a narrow escape, six families were marooned, and a funeral was delayed when the outside stone stairway leading to an upper flat at a two-storey Blantyre tenement collapsed on Saturday 6th January 1934. The woman, named Mrs. Meechn, was on her way to the house on the second floor of a […]
Shortly after five o’clock on Friday 7th January 1938, a fatality occurred on Glasgow road at Blantyre, when Joseph Meechan (7), residing with his grandparents, Mr and Mrs John Meechan, 6 Alpine Street, Blantyre, was instantly killed. The boy darted across the road, and within 50 yards of his home was knocked down by a […]
On Monday 18th September 1939, demolition work commenced to start knocking down some of the older tenements in Alpine Street, located just off Glasgow Road. (Alpine Street doesn’t exist anymore, but it was located approximately where the corner of modern John Street is today, more to the side of the Sports Centre.) William Joseph Maxwell […]
The Blantyre Picture Theatre was constructed in 1913 on Glasgow Road near the corner of Alpine Street. It was the first cinema in the area to show reels of film and proved an instant hit with the entire population, young and old alike. Built by EH Bostok, It proved an important local role in the […]