Harper’s Garage

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Blantyre history

Harper’s Garage, Craig Street

Another bite sized chunk of Blantyre History

Harper's Garage Margaret.
If you looked directly across the Glasgow Road (Main Street) from Paterson’s the painters, there would be Craig Street, I have been unable so far to come up with any old photo of Craig Street, but I hope some day I will and if I do, I will most certainly add it to the Gallery.

Maybe someone else has one and would like to add it to the Blantyre collection. Did you see the two great photos that someone entered into the gallery of the Murray’s Raw’s and Dixon Raw’s Houses, these are the type of photos we would love to have for a reference to in the future.

Craig Street as we once knew it has been cut in half by the new shopping centre, Main store on the sight being “Asda supermarket”. It took up the first half of Logan Street, Craig Street And Victoria Street one huge store and parking lot.

Where the Turners Building ends on the Glasgow Road there was an open piece of land before you hit the corner of Craig Street. Why this was never built on in my lifetime in Blantyre, I do not know, as it had a very prominent position on the Main Street.

On the other corner of Craig Street stood Harper’s Garage, this was the main garage in Blantyre for Repairs and the fueling of any cars that came through the village and was the main garage for the hire of limousines for weddings, funerals etc.. If you look at Page 40, the one with the new Post Office on the corner of Logan Street follow the Central Buildings along and you will see a couple of B.P. petrol signs, this would be the forecourt of the garage. That piece of sunlight you see at the end of the Central Buildings is being cast over the open piece of land I just spoke about. This piece of land ran for about 100 yds on the left hand side of the Craig Street traveling South and was also a short cut for us Logan Street kids to cut across for our trip to school and to make our way west through Blantyre.

There were about six private bungalows after the open space, then a sawmill and Joiners yard. Then about another 100 yds of 2 storey Tenement type buildings, with the stairs and toilets attached to the back side of the building. We are now about half way up the left hand side of Craig Street.

If we go back down to the start of Craig street on the right hand side going South. The Harpers Garage and the works yard took up about 100 yds and where it finished it was on the same line as the Bungalows on the other left hand side of the road and here we had the start of about six Bungalows on this right hand side of the street, a bit of uniformity. But unlike the other side of the street where we had a line of 2 storey tenements. On this side of the road we had a long line of attached single homes with a confectionery store at each end of this block, both of which did very well with the three schools in near proximity. Calder Street School (senior) — Nessies School (junior) and Auchinraith School. At the end of the Bungalows on this right hand side of Craig Street was an opening which a lot of the kids used as a shortcut over to Nessies School and for anyone traveling west. This entrance opened up on to a field or waste ground, where all the kids in the neighborhood met to play, it also led over to the Honeymoon in Victoria Street where I was born, so as you can imagine I knew this area fairly well, even after we left this area I went back often to play with my wee pals. I have a couple of photos of us kids from that area which I will post soon in the Gallery when I can come across them.

At the other end of this block was another piece of waste ground on the corner of Calder Street. This street with the exception of some new buildings etc remains the same today as back in the 1930’s. I will cover Calder Street some time in the future.

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Continuing the conversation between Thomas Dunsmuir Hartman in Chicago (known as TDH or Drapadew) and originally from Logan Street, Blantyre and Margaret in Queensland Australia on TalkingScot.

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