Prior to 1905, Watson Street was merely a roughly formed cul de sac leading from Broompark Road consisting of old properties, not in the best condition. In Summer 1905, a new footway was formed, a narrow path for pedestrians joining Hunthill Road to Watson Street, at a point around three quarters of its length nowadays. […]
Today, we’re looking at the controversial subject of some of the privately owned roads in Blantyre that had by the Millennium got into a poor standard. With the council choosing not to adopt them previously, expectation was on the residents of each street to look after them. All these photos date from the year 2000. […]
Taken from high above Burnbank Hillhouse, this aerial photo from 1961 looks back towards High Blantyre. At a time before the EK Expressway, you can see the relatively new Kirkton Avenue and Waverley Terrace in the Housing Estate in the foreground, which had only been constructed a few years earlier. The fields to the […]
On Tuesday 21st August 1923, the Blantyre police completed their investigation in connection with a drowning the previous week, in a tributary of the Clyde. Mrs. O’Brien, the wife of a miner who lived at Watson Street had disappeared from home on the Friday night. Police were of the opinion that there was no […]
In April 2016, I received an email from Janet Hogan who said, “My G/grandfather Robert Smith, born 1837 Ireland, moved to Scotland and in the 1901 census he was living at Pilot Acre, Stonefield, Lanarks with niece Maggie Pollock. I believe Robert died between 1901-11 but I have searched and searched on quite a few websites, […]
I wrote last year about a little 19th Century town in Ontario, Canada called “Blantyre”. It had only 50 people living there and in modern times had become a “ghost town”. You can read the article here. https://blantyreproject.com/2015/12/16/the-canadian-blantyre/ I’ve now had a couple of Canadian ex-pats point out this little town to me, but nobody has […]
An offence, which Sheriff M’Donald said was punishable by a penalty of £lOO, was admitted in Hamilton Sheriff Court in October 1933 by James William Dunn, of 7 Watson Street, High Blantyre. He was accused having, between June 19, 1929, and September 18. 1933. practised dentistry from his home without being registered in the Dentists’ Register […]