Let's get out!

It's been glorious again today so we got ourselves out to Summerlee Heritage Park in Coatbridge.

Summerlee was formerly one of Scotland's most important ironworks and the remains of its blast furnaces and other buildings can be seen from the view pod and parapet at the north-east side of the main exhibition hall.

Opened in 1836, it used the newly discovered 'hot blast' process. This was a process, patented by James Beaumont Neilson (the younger brother of Summerlee's founder John Neilson), that blew the hot gasses of the production process through the furnaces.

This made the smelting process much more efficient and led to Coatbridge becoming known as the 'Iron Burgh' of Scotland by the 1850s. However, the rise of the steel indusry in the later part of the 19th Century saw iron's decline.

Although heavy industry continued in Coatbridge for many years, strikes and economic depression in the 1920s saw Summerlee's furnaces go out for the last time in 1926. In the late 1930s, the site demolished and the remains of the ironworks were covered over.

Post-war, light engineering companies operated on the site, the last being the Hydrocon Crane Company, whose engineering shed forms today's main exhibition hall - complete with overhead cranes still in place!

We have been before and done the mine and the cottages etc but we never got round to that today.

Daddy was on the big locomotive although I don't think he should have been!!

We briefly seen Amie, Emma, Aunty Gillian and Granny at the park in Eaglesham before coming home so that Katie could get ready for Violet's birthday party this afternoon with Maggie. They had a ball.

Poor Megan has had her first taste of "growing pains" ....ouch I remember them. A wee hot water bottle under the legs for a wee while and she felt a whole lot better.

The kids are off tomorrow as it is the bank holiday here so we are going to visit Big Papa!!

See you all later.

Di