Billed as Scotland's Noisiest Museum, Summerlee Heritage Park in Coatbridge re-opens on Friday, September 25, 2008, after the completion of a £10 million refurbishment. This saw the main exhibition hall being completely cleared, and the building stripped back to its bare skeleton as part of an almost complete rebuild, as you can see in our selected pic.
The museum closed back in October 2006, so has been off the radar for almost two years, and sorely missed by those who came to see it as a regular appointment. Within the collection of authentic, working exhibits of our industrial and mechanical past the visitor can enjoy the noise, or trace the evolution of of heavy industry from Victorian times to the present day. Historic items include working steam engines, trams, and a replica of the Vulcan, the first all iron boat in Scotland.
Families can (at the right time of year of course) enjoy the play area and picnic areas at the side of the Monklands Canal, which flows through the site.
The site itself is of historic significance, having been the Summerlee Ironworks.
* Superb new exhibition hall with interactive displays and kid's Discovery Zone * Scotland's only working electric tramway * Underground mine and miners' cottages from 1840 to 1960 * Great playpark for tots to teens * Café and shop. Free parking.
Open all year 10am to 5pm (4pm Nov - March) Closed Dec 25 & 26 and Jan 1 & 2.
Me and Mrs. Brittles will be there tomorrow @ 11 on the dot. I am hearing good things about the refurb.
A cousin of mine is/was the Sponsorhip Officer responsible for helping to raise much of the funding of £400k.
One wee correction to the E.T. article is that the canal that flows through Summerlee is in fact the Gartsherrie cut and not the Monkland Canal. The cut served both Summerlee and Gartsherrie Ironworks and joins the Monkland Canal at Coatbridge Fountain.
I personally bow to the the Captain's knowledge of canal detail, but fear the cause is lost for the rest of the world, and Summerlee itself, which carries the promise of "From here you can take a stroll down to the restored Summerlee branch of the Monklands Canal and along to to the children's playpark and picnic area."
If any of the opening text appears in the ET then they stole it from here (or the original source) 'cos we don't do ET in here any more (unless an arm is twisted up a back), since they're one of the sites that break their article links, meaning they get a free mention, but make you look stupid if anyone follows the link you post (and didn't check to make sure it worked).
It would be hard to not to do a good refurb of Summerlee
By that, I don't mean that it was rubbish before, and anything would be an improvement, rather that the magic of the place is what it shows and the condition it is in, and the fact that it works. I'd say it's the sort of place that you would have to work at in order to make it failure, rather than have to work at to make a success.
It will be interesting to see/hear if it is all squeaky clean when opened, and if so, how long it takes it to "bed in" and start to look natural and mucky
I personally bow to the the Captain's knowledge of canal detail, but fear the cause is lost for the rest of the world, and Summerlee itself, which carries the promise of "From here you can take a stroll down to the restored Summerlee branch of the Monklands Canal and along to to the children's playpark and picnic area."
I have to correct myself for in my haste I called it what it was known as locally - Gartsherrie Ironworks being further 'upstream' if you like than Summerlee, in fact the terminus. However on checking I notice that the official (Ordnance Survey version anyway) name of the cut (or branch) is Gartsherrie, Hornock and Summerlee Branch Canal. All cuts or branches off the Monkland Canal to works or coal mines were financed - by the enterprise they serviced - and run as separate entities from the main canal. Its a bit sad actually that the stretch of the Monkland Canal in the centre of Coatbridge that the cut or branch in question joins up with is has been drained of water for a while now, possibly some kind of maintenance issue.
I found the reference on the E.T. site and since they are the official 'media partner' of Summerlee I assumed it was original. I just hope they haven't went too over the top because I liked the authentic old fashioned, almost as if you were there feel about the shed and its exhibits. I'll report back tomorrow night.
I may be wrong, but as if I recall correctly the section of canal that passed through the centre of the town was drained and filled in response to local pressure, as a result of the number of children drowning in the water, and related scares.
I can't quote numbers, but I'm sure there were deaths back then and it was always in the papers, and where children and parents are concerned, one is enough to start the ball rolling on such a campaign, sweep up the local MP who will always be keen to score some Brownie Points, and the resultant momentum can carry it on to extremes.
Not, I obviously hasten to add, that there's any less danger should one death result from such a hazard, as compared to more than one.
Still, that's the past, and I'm on the edge of my seat for the update tomorrow night, and finding out if the DIY aspect is still there.
I used to work with one of the guys who is a steam enthusiast and was part of the volunteer team that kept the place going - an expert on Sentinel steam lorries - and I don't think he'd let them modernise it, or would be off into the sunset if he was still around and they did, so fingers crossed.
His photo featured in one of the displays, and he was hard to miss if you knew him (Roly) as he was the classic bearded enthusiast - I hope the pic has survived, and not been tidied away as he was one of the genuine, original characters.
You are absolutely correct Apollo. After a long campaign by the then Coatbridge town council funds were allocated by government and in the early part of the 70's the canal was filled in and the water channelled through two large pipes. What I was talking about was a portion of it between the 2 railway bridges where the top soil was scraped off to a depth of 2ft. this was filled with water to simulate the old canal as it was there, a fountain was installed as a feature. It was a neat addition to the townscape, however it seems to have been abandoned for some reason - which I hope is temporary.
At the far left is the entrance to the Gartsherrie cut.
We enjoyed the new Summerlee tremendously but I'm sure most of the £10.5 million was spent on the fabric of the buildings, that said there are some very nice new features, some that have been added to old fixtures and enhancing the experience of the exibit. There is much quality audio attached to a number of the exibits.
Haven't seen the fountain in years, but it was flowing there when I used to drop into the shops there.
Unrelated, but this reminded me of the canal towards Drumpellier, where we used to run, and this was another fairly regular warning/drowning spot as well.
Glad the new show gets a thumbs up - I was fan of the old People's Palace format, and have never taken to the refurbished version they delivered a few years ago, recent visits showed that most of the new toys were either switched off or broken, so were largely a waste of time - unless they employ some techies to keep them working.
If you're talking about Photobucket, then you can freely post the individual urls of any of the pics in your albums without compromising the albums themselves if they are private.
The pic corresponding to the url will appear as normal, but if anyone attempts to look at the album or directory they are in, then they will either get an Access Denied message, or be presented with the login screen and asked for a username and password, so your private albums always stay private, even if you use individual pics from them in public.
Of course, while I was waffling above, you were organising the pics, and the album had been edited back into the last post.
It certainly looks good in terms of not "wastiing" anything and I don't see any new, obtrusive "improvements".
Quite a few large additions to the exhibits that I don't recall from before the shutdown too.
Have you been down the pit? I didn't get the chance before the shutdown, although the feature was open - nobody was ever taking advantage when I was there, and I never had enough time on the last few visits.
Thanks for the look
Oh, what's the big thing they've planted in front of the glass wall?
We both well remember the old Coatbridge and how dirty it was as a result of all the works belching out toxic fumes, the canal that looked so still, black and scary - in fact it was only 4ft. deep - and that was in the middle. The canal photos in the link are of the stretch of the canal previuosly discussed - the Gartsherrie cut - after it passed the Summerlee works. We never went down the pit today - been down before. The glass type extrusion from the main building has a couple of audio visual gizmos but it looks under utilised and I figure it has more features yet to be installed. I'll ask my cousin.(who was interviewed on the Summerlee segment on Reporting Scotland tonight, the boy done well.)
Ye gods what have they done, it has all been sanitized. I haven't been there for about 20 years and was much taken by the authentic dust lying on and around all the exhibits. It reminded me of a visit to the Esse mechanised foundary in Bonnybridge in the 1960s. These industries were extremely dirty but modern generations will not realise this now and have no real idea how their forebears lived and worked.
The coal bogies are authentically dirty and have a distinctly pungent odour, I know as I stuck my nose right up to them. Yes its a bit sanitised but it seems thats what modern visitor attractions have to be these days. God forbid an auld wumman should slip on the sawdust, think of the claim her lawyers would put in.
If you get a chance go and see it Fox, I think you'll ditch your assumptions.
I'm sure ordinary folk would see it as dirty, as it is now, and was before the refurb, but for those of us that have ever done any sort of "real" work - and I'm thinking of the sort of day that can end with two or three baths that still end up with dirty water and and a ring around the bath - it does look quite shiny.
That said, it has just been rebuilt from the ground up. If it's not clean today, it never will be.
And on that note. given that it is a working museum with moving machines and real steam engines running, I'm sure the grime will collect over time
That sounds like the complete workshop they managed to collect and install in the middle of the hall.
I always thought it was a bit spooky the way they had piled everything in, as you say as if everyone had just walked out, and was a bit of a Mary Celeste moment.
I know they'd have last all the bits (unless they'd glued and screwed them down), but I always wished I could wander through the workshop itself, rather than just the route they guided you through the at end of the shop, and behind a barrier.
Later on they added some smaller displays around the perimeter, and they were a bit funny as they included some tableau that depicted things like sandcasting and coal boilers, both filthy tasks, but everything in the displays was scrubbed clean, even the coal and the coal shovel! And there was, of course, no coal dust. But you knew what they meant.
Maybe the Captain can tell me when the museum opened. Little appears available on the web from a cursory search except a vague mention of mid eighties. I thought I visited it earlier than that.
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I am hearing good things about the refurb.
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