Month: March 2016

Morgan Street Now & Then!!!

MorganStreet1937WilmaBolton.Fix.
Morgan Street Hamilton, 12th May 1937. 

A snapshot in time, Wilma Bolton sent us a picture of how Morgan Street looked back in the 12th May 1937. Wilma told Historic Hamilton,

My parents Jimmy and Peggy Russell lived in a single end in this close from 1940 until 1947. I remember being in the washhouse with my cousin Eleanor Lang while my mother and her sister Ella Lang were doing the washing.

My aunt Ella lived in Morgan Street. Both of us girls were aged about three at the time. My uncle Guy Lang had a newsagent and barber shop across from the close. We moved from Selkirk Street to the prefabs in Mill Road in 1947.

There are garages where the houses stood but the shop’s across from them are still standing.

Have you got a picture of a close in Hamilton that no longer stands? If you have then we would like to see it. Send it to us on the page or by email historichamilton@icloud.com

MorganStreetGoogle.Fix.
Google Street view of Morgan Street.

Mcarthur’s Woollen Mill on Woodside Walk.

McAurthurs.
Mcarthur’s Woollen Mill. 

McArthurs Woolen Mill was located at 24 Woodside Walk and it was a rough rectangular 3-storeye’d factory building dating from 1921, it was a large imposing building that looked out of place in the street.

It had a comprising reinforced-concrete frame with a flat roof and the facade, which had multi-pane metal-framed windows, it was faced with ashlar and bull-faced snecked rubble, as was the SE-facing side wall, which also had a 1921 date-plaque.

McAurthurs1
Mcarthur’s Accounts Office. 

The side and rear walls were made of red brick and the building started life an extension to the former Woodlands Bakery for Messrs Samuel Gilchrist Ltd.

The Tartan Factory was closed by 2001 and was shortly demolished after. There are now new flats that occupy the land where the building stood.

McAurthurs2
The retirement flats at the former site of the McAurthurs factory.

THE OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1714-1848

Old Hamilton Grammar.
The Old Hamilton Grammar in the Auld Toon. 

 

The old Grammar school No longer existing as an independent institution, Hamilton Academy had a history going back to 1588 when it was endowed by Lord John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Hamilton.

The school, then known as the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (not to be confused with the present Hamilton Grammar School) stood near the churchyard adjoining Hamilton Palace until in 1714 Anne Hamilton, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, great-granddaughter of the Founder, re-located the school to a new building on the newly named Grammar School Square also in the lower part of the town, and presented this to the Town Council of Hamilton.

BackOBarnes.Fix
The former site of the Hamilton Grammar. 

The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire of 1835 notes of this school building that it “is a venerable pile, near the centre of the town, containing a long wainscotted hall, emblazoned with the names of former scholars, cut out in the wood, as at Harrow.

The old school building of 1714–1848 In 1847 this old school building on Grammar School Square was sold for £253 and survived until its demolition in 1932.

NewWynd.Fix.
New Wynd 200 years ago. 

 

A plaque commemorating the site of the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (which was renamed Hamilton Academy in 1848) was commissioned by pupils of Hamilton Academy and unveiled by the Academy’s rector, David Anderson MC, on 21 March 1932 at a public ceremony in the presence of Academy pupils and teaching staff; the Provost and members of the Town Council, and members of Hamilton Civic Society.

 

Duchess Anne
Anne, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton. 1631-1716.

The Prefabs of Whitehill.

Prefabs1.Fix

This picture probably dates form the 1950s and it shows the small prefabs that were erected after the second world war.

The factory in the background looks like it could be from the old Brick works, however I am not 100% sure of this. If I am correct then the area where the prefabs were located could now be Abbotsford Road. What’s your thoughts on this?

HAMILTON’S VANISHING HERITAGE.

St. Annes..jpg

HAMILTON’S VANISHING HERITAGE.

Hamilton’s no’ the same as it was
There’s nae weans playin’ at rounders or ba’s
Neilsland bings missing and Cadzow’s noo gaun,
For rows o’ fine hooses wi’ monoblock lawns.

Low Waters School, where is it noo?
I passed it just yesterday it canna be true!
Nae infant voices chantin’ a table,
Nae Mr Thomson for the weans he was able.

St. Anne’s is still there, my heart it is singing,
A familiar old building, children’s voices still ringing.
Blair’s shop has gone, a sign of the times,
Where’s Cadzow Bridge, the train and the lines?

Cadzow Rows has vanished and Eddlewood too,
Where’s Maggie’s Dairy? It’s just a road noo.
Guy Kerr’s is still staunin’ how long will it last?
And then like the rest, it’ll be a thing o’ the past.

Hamilton’s no’ Hamilton, my heart it is sad,
They’ve bulldozed our heritage, the good and the bad,
Time marches on I know this is true,
Just leave something please, for the future to view.

200 Goodbye St. Anne’s
St. Anne’s alas has joined the rest, now she’s gone
forever, Of all the children who passed through her
door, Will they forget her?…….NEVER!

The above poem was written by Wilma Bolton in 2003 and was donated to Historic Hamilton to share with our readers. I’m sure that most of you can relate to these words.