Coatbridge has an incredible history and heritage that any local can be proud to claim - today we wanted to look at Coatbridge when it was at its industrial peak.
While Coatbridge made a name for itself during the industrial revolution, there is evidence that the area was settled before even the Romans, as far back as as the Mesolithic Age 3,000 years ago - when a circle of bronze age coffins were found in Drumpellier estate in 1852.
Coatbridge owes its name to a bridge that carried the old Edinburgh-Glasgow road over the Gartsherrie Burn, at what is now Coatbridge Cross. This first appears on a survey in 1755 as Cottbrig, one of a number of places on the wider Coats estate. The name Coats most likely comes from the Scots word cot(t), meaning “cottage”, although an alternative theory links it to the name of the Colt family, who owned land here as early as the 13th century.
In the last years of the 18th century, the area developed from a loose collection of hamlets into the town of Coatbridge. The town’s development and growth have been intimately connected with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution.
Coatbridge was a major Scottish hub for iron works and coal mining in the 19th century, and in this era it was described as ‘the industrial heartland of Scotland’ and the ‘Iron Burgh’.
All these images were supplied via CultureNL - to find more pictures and stories about your local history, heritage, and more, visit the CultureNL collections.
Take a look at these 12 pictures to see Coatbridge at its industrial peak.
1. The Phoenix and Clifton Ironworks (Late 1800s)
This photograph of two of Coatbridge’s malleable ironworks shows just how heavily developed the canal banks were in urban areas.The open-sided sheds by the canals probably contained rolling mills and steam hammers whereas the bulidings with lots of chimneys contained puddling furnaces where the iron was processed before being rolled and hammered. The site of the Phoenix Iron Works on the right is now a McDonald’s car park and the area in the centre of the photo is now a traffic roundabout.
2. Coatbridge Burgh Police (1895)
The Police Tug o’ War team (note the forearms on these fellas) are pictured with their rope in the courtyard of the Coatbridge Municipal Buildings, which housed the Burgh Police Station.
3. The Fountain on Main Street (1904)
This picture postcard, posted in 1904 shows the Whitelaw Fountain at the bottom of Main Street. The fountain has been moved several times over the years.
4. For the Children’s Sake DESTROY The Liquor Traffic (Circa. 1912)
Photograph of a temperance movement demonstration in Coatbridge around 1912. These movements were popular both with employers and the church - a successful temperance movement was seen in Kirkintilloch, which was a ‘dry town’ that outlawed the sale of alcohol from 1923 to 1967.