Downie’s Buildings – were former 19th Century houses and early 20th Century shops located near Kirkton Cross on the north side of Main Street. To put this in context, they would have been where the small rectangular grass park is today near the Cornerstone pub. They are known to have existed prior to 1855, for […]
Mr. William Downie (Junior) – b1845-d1893. Born in Blantyre in 1845 to father William Downie Senior and a Blantyre lady named Ellen, he was an only child, who would always live with his parents at Kirkton even into his 30’s. In the 1861 census, 16-year-old William Junior was an apprentice grocer, learning the family […]