In 2019 we embarked on an 11 week long European, UK, Ireland and Singapore odyssey, where we visited Shotts, Northern Larnakshire, Scotland. I’ve found that there are a lot of place names associated with the Parish of Shotts, in the Council of North Larnakshire.
Over the years, our Newlands ancestors were at Bathgate, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Shotts. My husband David’s great great grand parents, Robert Hamilton Whitelaw and Elizabeth Guy Jack were also from Shotts – together with their eldest child Mary, came to Australia as assisted immigrants on the “Anna” in 1855.
Shotts, lay on the old Great Road (coaching road) that ran between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The other old main roads between Edinburgh and Glasgow were via Bathgate and via Falkirk Linlithgow. Today the railway is a main link between Edinburgh and Glasgow, although it was only electrified about 2019.
Naming of Shotts – source Undiscovered Scotland website
“In the years around 1500 the main road through Kirk o’ Shotts became notorious as the hunting ground of a highwayman called Bertram de Shotts, reputed to be a 7 foot tall giant of a man. Bertram was so disruptive that a bounty was placed on his head by James IV. This was collected in 1505 by John Gilchrist, Laird of Muirhead who ambushed and killed Shotts. It has been suggested that Bertram de Shotts later gave his name to Shotts, but this does seem no more than folklore: Bertram seems to have taken his name from the place in which he lived and the true origin of “Shotts” appears to be the Gaelic for “place of steep slopes”, which well fits the upland location.”
History – Shotts
Shotts of North Larnakshire originally consisted of five villages – Dykehead, Calderside, Stane, Springhill and Torbothie growing up around the old coach roads between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Shotts is known for being an old Scottish industrial heartland – of iron, steel and coal from the early 19th Century – these constituted the main industries in Shotts for 150 years. For a short time there was also a shale oil works in Shotts in the 19th Century.
Shotts was renowned for its quality pig iron and decorative iron castings. Leading up to WW2 there had been 22 coal mines in the area, as well as the main British Steel Corporation’s (Corus) plants of Scotland like Ravenscraig near to Motherwell. This is all of interest to David and I, as we are both graduates in Metallurgy from the University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Not all was heavy industry in Shotts however. In1931 Bells Bakers were established in Shotts in a modest way, which has evolved to being a major enterprise, Bells Food Group, in Scotland. Timpo Toys was also part of the Shotts area for nearly 20 years – employing local people, including women, which had an impact on Shotts. However David’s Whitelaw ancestors of Shotts were shoemakers, whilst my Newlands were Merchant Tailors.
In May 2019 we travelled to Scotland and visited Shotts on our way from Edinburgh to Glasgow, wondering what sort of place that our respective Whitelaw and Newlands ancestors had left behind.
In that May 2019 trip we discovered the industrial heritage displays at Dykehead Cross, Shotts. We saw the Iron Giant ironworker Sculpture, aka Shotsi the Shotts Giant, and interpretative panels for ironmaking & coalmining have been installed to celebrate / commemorate the industrial heritage of Shotts as part of the Shape Up Shotts campaign in 2013 – BBC, Daily Record. It has also reflects De-industrialisation and the New Scotland, and Shotts is part of North Larnakshire that has been severely impacted by de-industrialisation – 1, 2, Shotts is now considered to be in a post industrialisation era impacted by lower levels of education. unemployment, especially youth unemployment, with some social problems. Most of the housing is council and social housing. However it has a Facebook group and that is where there is a greater sense of the community, compared with more academic and bureaucratic reports on Shott’s demographics over the de-industrial and post industrial times.
The weather was not very kind to us – no sun just very bleak – cool, grey and damp even though it was well into Spring. Somehow Undiscovered Scotland found sunny days in Shotts for their article on visiting Shotts. The town has been called many hard names in its day. Cold bleak, and damp; ugly and dreary; rough and backward; asthmatic and bing-y.- Shotts History. What is bing? A slag heap, i.e. a man-made mound or heap formed with the waste material (slag) as a by-product of coal mining or the shale oil industry.
Shotts has been a place of hard times and struggle, as captured in John Loudon’s poem
““Know ye the land where the dark herbless whinstone
In hillocks, not hills, rears it’s desolate head?
Where poverty chains down the nose to the grindstone,
Till the heart and the soul are as heavy as lead?
Where the crops never ripen, the roses cannot blow,
And the sunshine of summer scarce melteth the snow?
‘Tis the parish of Shotts, a place which the sun,
Cannot bless with his beams; which he hates to shine on”
Photos of Shotts in 2019
Shotts – Industrial Heritage
Industrial development in the Shotts area was facilitated by canal transport, and later also railways – see How Larnakshire became King Coal. And railways became integral to coalmining in the Hunter Valley in Australia in the mid 19th Century, attracting many men and their families, including Robert Whitelaw. Or was it the lure of the Australian goldfields that attracted Robert Whitelaw?
Below, the first two photos are all that remains of the Old Shotts Ironworks – the furnace bank and hot blast tower of the iron smelting works. Interpretative panels of the industrial past Dykehead Cross are also shown below.
Shotts History – Beyond Heavy Industry
However once you scratch the surface the area has some interesting history, beyond the industrial heritage of coal, iron and steel.
It been associated with Cromwell, and also with Bonnie Prince Charlie on his retreat across Scotland to the Highlands in the “45” times of 1745.
There is an old church at Shotts – called Kirk O’Shotts, along the old Great Road between Edinburgh and Glasgow, which dates from Roman times. The Kirk also has Covenanters (Presbyterian) history from back in the 17th Century.
The original Kirk O’Shotts was believed to have been built in 1450 (or maybe 1476) as the Catholic St Catherines in the time of James III of Scotland. Then following the Reformation in 1560 it became a Protestant church. By 1817 it had become unsafe and the current building was completed in 1820.
Being a Covenanter (Presbyterian) was firstly a matter of faith – there was The National Covenant or The Confession of Faith. Reverend John Livingstone had preached in the old Shott’s Kirk in1630 in what had become known as the Shotts Revival.
“The National Covenant was drawn up in 1638 and the original was signed in Greyfriars’ Churchyard, Edinbugh. Copies of the National Covenant were made and taken around Scotland to collect signatures, “. For the next 50 years until 1688 there were struggles between the Covenanters and the Episcopacy – and these were at times quite bloody including with executions. There was the Monkland Martyr, John Whitelaw executed at Edinburgh in1683, for his involvement in the Battle of Bothwell. He was from Stand, Airdrie which is about 11 miles from Shotts, and his testimony can be found here. His descendant became a poet – Janet Hamilton nee Thomson, a Shoemaker’s daughter of Carshill Shotts. Below is a banner commemorating the execution of Covenanter prisoners in Edinburgh.
Source : Whitelaw Family Web Site
The Covenanters often met secretly out in the open on the Moors, obviously not allowed into the Kirk O’Shotts?
Some of Newlands family would have been baptised, married and buried at the old Shotts Kirk, if not the Kirk O’Shotts built in the 1820’s.
Source : Salsburgh Heritage Group website – perhaps some Newlands lie here?
Roger Griffith has posted a short video on Youtube:
And now some claim that the Kirk’s graveyard is a Haunted Place.
Bands of Shotts & Shotts Highland Games
- Shotts Foundry Brass Band : 1829 – 1960 – Academia article – A typical industrial “works” band, it provided entertainment for the workers at the iron works, and at one time was one of three brass bands in the small town- It acquired its first sheet music and band instruments from the Orbiston Community -the Owenite co-operative community at Orbiston was the result of an experiment insocial and utopian communities according to co-operative principles following thephilosophy of Robert Owen of New Larnak Mill
- St Patricks Brass Band from 1878 & Shotts Development Brass from 2013
- Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band – from 1910 – The House of Edgar Shotts Dykehead Pipe Band
- Shotts Highland Games from 1950 – 1st Saturday in June – Parade, Pipe Band, Athletics, Highland Dancing – Other Highland Games
And, still there is a hall for the Orangemen of Dykehead Cross in the Shotts area.
Shotts Future – Windtowers, Renewable Energy & a Prison
Now Shotts is becoming more of a dormitory location for workers commuting to nearby cities and it is an area whose landscape is surrounded by wind towers for renewable energy – the Shotts Wind Farm?
Apparently Scotland is seeking to source up to 50% of its enrgy supply by 2030 from renewable sources.
Apparently there is a prison, HM Prison Shotts, near Shotts and it was intended to help local employment opportunities – however there is some suggestion that a significant number of these jobs had been taking by people from Poland – Core.ac.uk.
We hope to visit Scotland and Shotts one day, after the Covid 19 Coronavirus Pandemic is over. Places on our Shotts bucket list:
- Kirk O’Shotts & its graveyard
- Shotts Heritage Centre at the Shotts Library
- North Larnakshire Heritage Centre in Motherwell – Exhibitions
- Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life
- Polkemmet Country Park
And so I’ve discovered that there is a great deal to Shotts and its History
Kerrie Anne Christian
Newlands Reaching Across The Waters 
