County in Scotland
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire holds a mausoleum once famed for the longest echo in any man-made structure, a village that burns the old year, and the birthplace of Scotland's greatest explorer.
Key information
- County
- Lanarkshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Steel, coal, New Lanark, Tunnock's teacakes, Scotland's first new town
- What locals are called
- Lanarkshire folk
- Famous people
- David Livingstone, Jock Stein, Matt Busby, Thomas Tunnock
- Football clubs
- Motherwell (the Steelmen), Hamilton Academical, Airdrieonians, Albion Rovers
About Lanarkshire
The mausoleum that never stops talking
Hamilton Mausoleum was built for the 10th Duke of Hamilton, a man with grand tastes and a fondness for ancient Egypt. He bought an Egyptian sarcophagus and a mummy, and arranged to be laid in the sarcophagus himself. The building's great domed chapel produces an echo of roughly 15 seconds, which once earned it a place in the Guinness records as the longest echo in any man-made structure. That record has since been beaten by the far longer reverberation recorded in the Inchindown oil tanks near Invergordon. The nearby Hamilton Palace did not last as long as the mausoleum. It was demolished in 1921 after coal mining beneath it caused the ground to sink. That is Lanarkshire in miniature: lords with big ambitions, and coal underneath it all.
Steel, iron and a lot of coal
Coal and iron made Lanarkshire. Coatbridge, once ringed with blast furnaces, earned the name the Iron Burgh. Motherwell became Steelopolis, and its Ravenscraig steelworks was a giant of the industry until it closed in 1992. The mines carried a heavy human cost. In 1877 the Blantyre pit disaster killed 207 men, still one of the worst mining tragedies in Scottish history. The industrial past explains the football as well. Motherwell FC are nicknamed the Steelmen, and Hamilton Academical, known as the Accies, take their name from Hamilton Academy school. Airdrieonians are the Diamonds, and Albion Rovers play at Coatbridge's Cliftonhill.
A model village that tried to fix capitalism
On the River Clyde near Lanark, David Dale and Richard Arkwright founded the cotton mills of New Lanark in 1786. The village became famous under Dale's son-in-law Robert Owen, who ran it from 1800. Owen banned children under ten from working in the mills and opened a school for them. He also set up a shop selling goods at fair prices. Visitors came from across Europe to see how a mill town could treat its people decently. Today New Lanark is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a short walk from the Falls of Clyde, where the river drops in a series of thundering cascades.
The boy from Blantyre who walked across Africa
David Livingstone was born in Blantyre in 1813 and started work in the cotton mill there at ten. He read Latin propped up on his spinning machine, and went on to become a doctor, missionary and explorer. His journeys across Africa, including the first European crossing of the continent from coast to coast, made him one of Victorian Britain's biggest celebrities. The tenement where he grew up, Shuttle Row, now holds a museum about his life. Lanarkshire produced more famous names than its size suggests. Jock Stein, who managed Celtic to the European Cup in 1967, came from Burnbank near Hamilton. Sir Matt Busby, who built Manchester United's great post-war sides, grew up in Orbiston, Bellshill. Thomas Tunnock opened his bakery in Uddingston in 1890, and his caramel wafers and teacakes are now a national obsession.
Silver bells, new towns and burning the old year
Lanark's Lanimers, a week of processions and ceremonies each June, includes walking and riding the town's boundaries, with the main procession and crowning ceremony on Thursday. The Lanark Silver Bell, a racing prize said to date from the reign of William the Lion in the 12th century, is claimed to be the oldest horse racing trophy in the world. It was in Lanark, according to tradition, that William Wallace struck the first blow of his rebellion in 1297 by killing the English sheriff. In Biggar, the Burning of the Old Year is a Hogmanay bonfire in the main street, where locals see out the old year in flames. Up in the Lowther Hills, Leadhills is one of Scotland's highest villages, and its miners' library, founded in 1741, is among the oldest subscription libraries in Britain. The twentieth century added new towns. East Kilbride, designated in 1947, was Scotland's first, and Cumbernauld followed in 1956, bold concrete and all.
Castles, orchards and the Clyde Valley
Beyond the towns the Clyde Valley turns green and gentle. It was long known for its orchards and tomato houses, and fruit stalls still appear along the roads in season. Bothwell Castle, on a bend above the Clyde, is among the finest medieval castles in Scotland. Craignethan Castle, perched above the River Nethan, became popularly linked with Tillietudlem in Walter Scott's Old Mortality. Scott said he had no particular castle in mind, though he acknowledged that Craignethan resembled his fictional setting. Chatelherault, the Hamilton family's hunting lodge, still looks out over parkland with ancient wild white cattle nearby.
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