1894 got off to a slow start when the miners returned to work at High Blantyre after their New Year break. 800 men and boys who turned up to their work at Dixon’s Collieries 2 and 3 after a couple of days holidays, were told they could not descend until things were made safer. In […]
Tag: dixons
Colliery Office Explosion, 1898
On the last Saturday in November 1898, a rather serious accident occurred at Dixon’s Pit 3 in High Blantyre. However, before you think this like so many other accidents happened deep in the mine, this particular accident was unusual in its nature, as it happened in the Colliery offices! The offices of Messrs Dixons Ltd […]
Stonefield Road Railway Crossing
Next, a story about a railway level crossing which once crossed over Stonefield Road, leading from the railway mineral line, which is today Burnbrae Road. This story took place on Stonefield Road, outside what is now the Scotmid (Landmark) near Larkfield. One day in Summer 1908, a six year old boy, Alexander Lawson was patiently […]
Scotsman Reports Disaster – Part 6
Continued from Parts 1 – 5….from the Scotsman, Tuesday 23rd October 1877…..describing events in detail from the disaster morning before. We return to Pit 2 and the bravery of the first men sent down to inspect what was happening. One man, however, who made a very narrow escape with his life—to wit, John Sharp, a […]
Scotsman Reports Disaster – Part 4
Continued from Parts 1 – 3 ….from the Scotsman, Tuesday 23rd October 1877….. The weather during Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st was extremely boisterous and wet, and the sudden fall in the barometer was exceptional. There was during Sunday, it is understood, an unusually large flooding of water in both pits, due alike to the […]
Conifers Cut Back
Thanks are offered again to South Lanarkshire Council for cutting down the remaining tall conifers in High Blantyre Cemetery. The trees had in recent decades grown considerably and were obscuring the memorials and gravestones. They had partially been cut in October, so it was welcome news again when this week, the council cut down the […]
Cooper Ancestry
Susan Silva contacted me back in January 2017 saying, “I’m hoping to get some assistance on an ancestry matter. My grandmother was from Blantyre, and subsequently emigrated to Canada in the early 1920’s, however her parents remained in Blantyre as far as I know. I am from Toronto, Canada and am planning a trip […]







