- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
Bellshill is situated 9 miles (14.5 km) southeast of Glasgow, to the north of the South Calder Water. It is now considered a suburb of Bothwell and also includes the neighbourhoods of Orbiston, Hattonrig, Mossend and Milnwood. It was formerly a weaving village, but developed as a mining town with the arrival of the railway in the mid 19th century.
Many of its sandstone buildings date from the late-Victorian era with the notable exception of the parish church (1762). Nearby are Strathclyde Country Park, Strathclyde Business Park, the Eurocentral industrial estate and a railway terminal for Channel Tunnel traffic opened in 1994.
Source: Scottish Places article
Bellshill was located in the former parish of Bothwell.
History
- The following is taken from the Wikipedia article section "History", but it is not the complete section.
The earliest record of settlement in the Bellshill area is a village called Belmill, recorded on a map by Timothy Pont published in 1654. The village consisted of a row of quarry workers' houses owned by Mr. Bell, who owned a stone quarry to the south of Belmill. After the quarry closed, the village disappeared and a settlement developed nearby called Crossgates. About 1810, this new settlement took on the name Bellshill and continued to grow absorbing nearby villages such as Black Moss, Sykehead and Nesnas. (The latter two may be typos for Dykehead and Newmains, both of which are close by.)
After the mid-19th century, large coal and iron deposits were discovered nearby and a number of mines opened, the first being the Thankerton mine. This rapidly increased the size of the town, even bringing in immigrants from abroad, particularly Lithuania.
Research Tips
Sources for Old Parish Registers Records, Vital Records and Censuses
For vital records, consult the holdings for the Parish of Bothwell.
- FamilySearch (Indexes only)
- Scotland's People This is a pay website providing vital statistics and census data for all of Scotland with original images. There is a description at Scotland under Genealogical Resources.
Further Sources of Reference
Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.
- GENUKI article on the parish of Bothwell
- Scottish Places article on Bellshill--more information may be found by following the tabs on the right. The maps in this series are very useful.
- The maps website of the National Library of Scotland allows comparisons of modern-day and old maps of the same place. From the home page click on "Find by place" and then follow the instructions on the next page. Once you are viewing the place you want, use the slider <----> at the top of the map to compare the layout of roads and the place names of smaller areas, perhaps even farms, with the landscape today. The website takes some getting used to.
- The Statistical Accounts for Scotland In the 1790s and again in the 1830s, the ministers of the all the parishes of the Church of Scotland were asked to provide a description of their parish to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The original account request included 160 questions to be answered. These accounts are available in print in 20 volumes and are also online where it is freely available to browse. The browsing portal is below the viewing area of most computer screens. Scroll down to "For non-subscribers" and click on "Browse scanned pages". This brings you to another page on which one can enter the name of the parish in which you are interested.
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