On Thursday 26th September 1907, a horse came “a cropper” on the Spittal Brae. It had been yoked to a mineral delivery cart (at that time called a lorry) and was travelling back to Blantyre when it suddenly collapsed. The horse had been pulling aerated mineral water deliveries. A reporter picking up the story, tracked […]
The newspaper clipping from June 1960 was shared by Sandy Wilkie to Blantyre Project. Sandy has been doing a bit of a clearout during lockdown and keeps unearthing some historical snippets. This is ‘Janet’ the last animal to pull a Wilkie horsedrawn milk cart! Janet was a 25 year old mare at the time who […]
This photo is from the mid 1960’s and pictured is Peter Wilkie at Bardykes. He’s standing beside beautiful Golden Monarch, a Palomino Stallion put out to stud at Bardykes. The photos is kindly shared here by Sandy Wilkie, through Alex Rochead with permission. Gordon Cook, local historian told me, “This reminds me of the night he […]
I’m sharing this photo for no other reason than simply it is an astonishingly beautiful photo. Taken by local man Jim Brown in Autumn 2016, it shows a wealth of contrasts and colours. A horse captured by the lens, with Autumnal Calder trees in the background. Jim has many thousands of amazing Blantyre photos, but […]
There were several narrow escapes in Blantyre on the early morning of Saturday 22nd December 1928, when a horse attached to a milkfloat ran away from Thornhill Avenue near Glasgow Road, and continued its wild career for about a quarter of a mile, luckily clearing two buses on its way. It charged right down Glasgow […]
Its 1905 in this photo. David Ritchie, a joiner with an interest in photography, points his camera at Kirkton Cross towards the old Parish Church Halls, just in time to capture a horse coming up Hunthill Road (perhaps leading a laden cart?). David is standing at the door of Logan’s Bar (now known as the […]
Jean Mcintosh lives at Stoneymeadow, High Blantyre. She recently emailed me a short story, which gave her heart a flutter. Jean said, “You mentioned in one of your posts about the ghostly stories of the Lady Nancy. As you know my house looks onto it. This Morning about 2 am (Thursday 12th March 2015 – I […]