Old school building could be new arts centre

The scheme could save the Victorian former Lanark Primary School and Grammar `science block’ on the Wellgatehead, vacant for almost a decade now and under threat of total demolition.

The Gazette reported last year that, as an earlier scheme to convert the building into luxury flats had come to nothing, the current owners were applying for its demolition with an eye to new houses being built on the site.

However, major objections to this were raised when it was discovered that somewhere in the building was a long-forgotten mural, painted in the 1920s by one of the world-famous `Glasgow Girls’, Jessie M King.

The mural is understood to have been plastered over during the school’s long and varied history and no-one alive can remember exactly on which classroom wall it was painted.

Now a scheme has been drawn up by an informal group of Lanarkians dedicated to the old building’s survival which would see the mural uncovered, restored and form the centrepiece of a new Lanark Arts Centre with a complex of studios to serve Clydesdale’s highly active arts and crafts sector.

For more on this story pick up a copy of this week’s Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.