Lanarkshire Industrial Heritage: The history of Summerlee Heritage Park in 8 pictures

Today we wanted to explore the history of Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, one of our favourite cultural heritage spaces in Scotland.

Located in Coatbridge, the heritage park is built around the site of the Summerlee Iron Works which operated from 1836 to 1933. Since opening its doors to visitors in 1988, the attraction celebrating Lanarkshire’s industrial history has welcomed over 5 million visitors over 36 years. Around 180,000 people visit the heritage space every year.

The restoration of the brownfield site was a massive undertaking by the Summerlee Heritage Trust in the mid-1980s. It took hundreds of apprentices to clear the land around the Summerlee Iron Works, the work was intensive, and included restoring the Gartsherrie Branch of the Monkland Canal, which had lain derelict for 50 years and was blocked off with silt.

Following the restoration, reconstructions were made of a drift mine and miners’ rows beginning in 1989. The boatshed by the canal was made for Monklands District Council’s exhibit at the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival, but was then relocated to Summerlee afterwards, along with the replica of the Vulcan barge.

The very work in restoring Summerlee helped in remembering Lanarkshire’s industrial heritage, as old-school engineering skills had to be implemented in the restoration and reconstruction of old machinery. The heritage park won a conservation award in 1999 when they reconstructed the winding drum of the internationally important Farme Colliery Engine (1810) based entirely on old photographs.

Take a look below as we explore the work put in by Summerlee Heritage Museum in rebuilding