Airdrie Villages
Greengairs
Greengairs has an interesting
historical link with the new Heritage Park at
Summerlee, Coatbridge, because it was the Summerlee
Iron Company which first mined ironstone at
Greengairs in the 1840s. Coal later replaced
ironstone as the main product and the local colliery
changed hands five times between 1873 and 1923.
Longriggend
Longriggend began life as the
longest of a group of mining villages in this area.
Over a hundred houses were built in the 1870s but by
the 1910only 20 houses remained and most of the pits
had closed. Today only a handful of houses are to be
found on the Main Street but the Community Council
is one of the most active in the area.
Moffat Mills
A Victorian factory built on the outskirts of
Airdrie gave its name to this village which grew up
as a result of the paper-making industry. The Craig
family provided housing and other amenities for
their mil I workers. Takeover and rationalisation
eventually put the mills out of existence and in
1963 they were sold and converted into the
Inverhouse Distillery.
Just beyond Clarkston the
Moffat Mills branch struck off from to the South.
One of the original routes of the Ballochney Railway
to Wester Moffat Colliery, branched to Moffat Mills,
this branch survived until 1985 to serve the
InverHouse distillery. There was a regular service
of grain hoppers and the company (British Maltsters)
even had it's own locomotive. When the traffic
ceased this locomotive was acquired by the
Caledonian Railway Preservation group and moved to
Brechin in December 1985
WESTER MOFFAT HOUSE,
AIRDRIE Wester
Moffat House built 1859 -62,
was one of the architect Charles
Wilson's late designs. It
was built for William
Towers-Clark, solicitor,
whose initials were
incorporated in the stonework
of the south elevation. An
extension was built in 1865
to designs by Wilson's
partner, David Thomason, to
create a new porch.
Wester Moffat House
David Thomson described
the house in his article on
the works of Charles Wilson
in the proceedings of the
Philosophical Society of
Glasgow in 1882.
Wester Moffat is designed
with a view to produce a
pile of a high castellated
character, more like the old
baronial fortalice and in
this it is very successful.
The area of the plan has
been kept as small as
possible and brought nearly
to a square, while the
building has been raised
upon a basement and carried
up to a third floor, with a
square tower over the
entrance and high turrets on
the angles. There are no
lower buildings attached to
the main part, detracting
from its height, and the
whole presents an assemblage
of high pointed and
picturesque forms, which
group themselves to form a
design of great boldness and
variety. There is an air of
compactness, breadth,
richness, unity of effect,
and variety of detail about
this house but, as is always
the case, something has been
sacrificed for it, and I
reckon one of those things
to be the placing of the
kitchen offices in the
basement.
The mansion house was
acquired by Airdrie Burgh
Council c.1927 to
develop the site as a
sanatorium. Ward pavilions
were built in the grounds to
provide 50 beds and the new
hospital was opened by Major
Walter Elliot MP. in January
1929
Initials WCT incorporated in
the stonework of the south
elevation
PLAINS
Plains has its origins in the growth
of the mining industry. The men of Whiterigg,
Meadowhead, Ballochney, Arden and Stanrigg all
working in the pits - the last of which closed over
30 years ago. In the early 1860's the population of
Plains was just over 200 people. The town grew in
tandem with the area's mining industry. In the
early 1980's the population had grown to over 3,000.
The railway once linked Plains to Airdrie,
Caldercruix and Bathgate until bus services took
over.
View of Plains Main Street
taken around 1905.
Salsburgh
Salsburgh, situated at the south-eastern limit of
the Monklands, is best known for the Kirk O'Shotts
Parish Church, which sits at 1,000 feet above sea
level on the site of a medieval chapel. Salsburgh as
a community can be traced back to 1726 when it
consisted of only four houses. The coal and iron
interests of the Coltness Iron Company at the east
of the village provided work for the villagers
during the last century.
Caldercruix click to see separate page
Caldercruix is situated to the
north-east of Airdrie on the Bathgate road and it
owes its rise to the building of a paper mill and a
textile printing works which attracted workers to
settle there. The paper mill was famous for being
powered by two of the largest water wheels in
Scotland and the paper secured a high reputation for
quality in Scottish and English markets with the
company being particularly noted for the manufacture
of blotting paper. New houses and an Institute were
built for the workmen in the village and the church
was even named after the mill owners and called the
Craig Memorial Church.
Chapelhall
Chapelhall lies on the opposite side
of the North Calder Water from Calderbank and it has
a very similar history. Ironworking and coal mining
were once
prominent industries here with three blast furnaces
working at Chapelhall as early as the 1830s.
The old community also had a quarry,
a brickworks and a bakery. The first curator of the
Royal Gardens in Kew, William Aiton, began work as a
gardener in the grounds of the former Woodhall House
near Chapelhall.
Chapelhall now has a population of
4,639 and the industrial estates at Chapelhall and
Newhouse are important employers.
Glenmavis
Glenmavis is the community formerly
known as New Monkland and is the home of New
Monkland Church which was originally the only church
for the whole of
the parish which included Airdrie. The present
building was completed in 1777 and the church has a
remarkable record of only 18 ministers in charge
from
the mid-17th century to the present day. Visitors to
the village should also look out for the Kirkstyle
Inn which also appears on the 1860 map of what was
then a small hamlet. Coal mines were active at
Braidenhall and Whitehill in Glenmavis until 1906.
The growth of private housing estates has changed
the appearance of Glenmavis which is now mainly a
commuter village for Glasgow and the rest of
Lanarkshire.
Calderbank
This village lies south of Airdrie
on the opposite side of the North Calder water from
Chapelhall and it was a prosperous industrial
settlement with a population of almost 3,500 in the
middle of the last century. Ironworks and coal pits
were established in the area and the proximity of
the Monkland Canal was an important factor in the
growth of local industry. The first iron-hulled
passenger boat, the Vulcan, was constructed
at nearby Faskine on the banks of the canal
and launched into it in 1819. A full scale replica
of the Vulcan has been reconstructed and was
the centre-piece of the District Council's display
at the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988. It was then
transferred to Summerlee Heritage Park where it is
now on display. After the period of iron
construction was over, steel works were built on the
site of the ironworks, and so heavy industry
continued in Calderbank. Ship plates for the
Queen Mary were made in Calderbank.
From Samuel Lewis's Topographical
Dictionary c1846
Clarkston,
late a quoad sacra parish, including the villages of
Arden and Ballochney, in the Middle ward of the
county of Lanark, 1 1/4 mile (E) from Airdrie;
containing 4526 inhabitants. The parish was formed
of the south-eastern portion of that of New Monkland
and part of that of Shotts; it was seven miles in
length, and three in breadth, lying chiefly along
the south side of a pretty high dorse, which runs
from west to east. The soil is in general a cold
clay; in some parts is deep moss, and on the lands
of Auchingray and Brownieside are considerable
plantations. Agricultural improvement in this
quarter has been much neglected, owing, in some
measure, to the distance from which lime can be
obtained, but chiefly to the attention of the
proprietors of land having been turned to successful
searches after minerals, by which large fortunes
have been realised. Numerous iron-mines are now in
operation, and the whole district abounds in coal.
Contiguous to the village, are the Clarkston cotton,
and Moffat paper, mills, and at the village of
Gartness is an iron-rolling mill: the ores are
forwarded to another parish to be manufactured. The
Ballochney and Whiterigg railway runs along the
north side of the district, which is also
intersected by the middle road from Glasgow to
Edinburgh. Besides the villages of Clarkston, Arden,
and Ballochney, are five villages of considerable
size, and many of smaller extent and more recent
erection, for the accommodation of the miners and
other work-people, of whom the increase of late
years has been very great; and in various places are
handsome seats and modern residences. In the east
corner of the district, is the great reservoir for
supplying the Clyde and Forth canal.
From
Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary c1846
Ballochney,
a village, in that part of the parish of New
Monkland which formed the quoad sacra parish of
Clarkston, Middle ward of the county of Lanark;
containing 559 inhabitants. This place, which is
situated in the southern part of the parish, in an
important coal and ironstone district, gives name to
a line of railway extending from it, for about four
miles westward, to the southern terminus of the
Monkland and Kirkintilloch, and the eastern terminus
of the Glasgow and Garnkirk railroad. The capital of
the company, which was incorporated in 1826, was
originally 18,000; but power was acquired in the
session of 1835, to increase it to 28,000; and by an
act passed July 1, 1839, the capital was further
augmented to 70,000, for the purpose of improving
the line, which now has several branches. In 1843,
the company was empowered to increase its capital to
110,000
