An alarming occurrence at Blantyre took place about one o’clock Tuesday 16th November 1920, when the Craighead colliery bing, which belongs to Messrs William Baird and Co., gave way! Around two thousand tons of sludge and stones cascaded down the Bing and was scattered across the Whistleberry Road. The who incident was a most unusual […]
Looking at the Charles Ross 1773 map of Blantyre, many of the names shown are familiar, but I noticed “Lithrig” which looks to be an early adaptation of Letterick. Also beside Crossbasket and Greenhall is “Craighead” which surprised me somewhat. However, by far the most striking feature of the map is the absence of […]
This photo may be more difficult to put into a modern context, for only the railway line remains today. Taken in September 1939 by the Smith family, the scene looks north westwards over to the former Craighead Bing. In the background, the whitewashed building is the piggery and the railway line at this point […]
Alston, Mr. George Charles (Junior) – was born 13 Sept 1864 at Craighead, Blantyre, Lanarkshire. Living a priviledged life, he studied at Eton Matric Michs 1883, acquiring his qualification, a BA in 1886. For a time also he was in Ceylon as a tea planter. He is pictured here in 1895 sporting a moustache […]
Alston, Mr. George (Senior) – Alston is an English and Scottish name with two possible origins. It could be a locational name given to someone who lived in a town called Alston, a name derived from an Old English personal name and the word tun, meaning settlement. The son of Glasgow Merchant George Alston of […]
Before Sheriff Mercer, at Hamilton Sheriff Court on Monday 1st November 1926, seven men were charged with forming part of a disorderly crowd of over 700 people in Glasgow Road, Blantyre. This was a time towards the end of the great mining strike and feeling amongst the unemployed miners were still running high, especially to those […]
Low Blantyre was the location of what threatened to become an ugly scene in September 1928. The events took place at a Blantyre football match between the Blantyre Celtic v. Bridgeton Waverley game on 27th September 1928. Thankfully, the timely intervention of the police saved the situation. Behind the goal at the pavilion end […]
With the arrival of Greyhound Racing in 1920’s Blantyre, came the inevitable gambling problems for many people in our town. At Craighead, a new sight was plain clothes officers, acting on behalf of the gambling commission, walking around the racetrack and others locally to see if illegal activity was going on, especially with the […]