Carstairs, South Lanarkshire
Carstairs (/kɑːrˈstɛərz/, Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal Tarrais) is a village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. Carstairs is located 5 miles (8 km) east of the county town of Lanark and the West Coast Main Line runs through the village. The village is served by Carstairs railway station, which is served by the Caledonian Sleeper to and from London Euston. Carstairs is best known as the location of the State Hospital. Carstairs is applied to the places Carstairs Village and the village of Carstairs Junction where the railway station is situated. The two places are two completely different villages divided by 1 mile (2 km) of land, a parkland area (Monteith Park) and the railway line.
Carstairs Village has massively expanded since 2007 with the building of Millwood Estate (MCA Homes now defunct and completed by Cala Homes). Carstairs Village is centred on the main thoroughfare Lanark Road, off which is the original Rosemount Crescent and Avenue Road and School Road. There are further streets at Millwood Estate namely- Castledyke Way, Castledyke Lea, Castledyke Gardens, Castledyke View and Castledyke Road. The village is currently served by a Doctors Surgery, an Rx Pharmacy, a Cooperative food store, a cafe (Cafe on the green), a Car Wash and Tyre fitting workshop. There is also a pub and restaurant called the Carstairs Village Inn situated on Lanark Road whilst there is a second-hand car dealer located at the entrance of the village from the Carnwath to Lanark road. Where as Carstairs Junction has reduced in size due to social decline and because of the bad state of some of the buildings, more than half of the town has been demolished since the 1960s.
History
A Roman fort was built at Castledyke in the first and second century AD. A parish school was opened in 1619, and by 1754 William Roy recorded a sizeable farming village on the Lanark road to Carnwath and Edinburgh. Carstairs was made a burgh of barony in 1765. The mansion of Carstairs House was built in 1821-24 for Henry Montheith. 1848 saw the building of a railway station by the Caledonian Railway. By 1895 there was an inn and post office at the village.[1]
During the 1920s, the Ministry of Labour acquired Lampits Farm, Carstairs Junction, for use as a labour camp. By 1938 there were 35 so-called "Instructional Centres", with a capacity of over 6,000. Their role was to 'harden' young unemployed men and prepare them for work elsewhere. Lampits Farm was originally intended in 1929 to train young men in farm and forestry work, with a view to their emigrating to Canada or Australia; it became an Instructional Centre a year later. Many of the Carstairs inmates came from coal-mining and other industrial backgrounds in the West of Scotland. The Ministry of Labour sold the site in 1935, and it reverted to use as a farm. In its last months, the Ministry of Labour used the inmates to help the Scottish Office Prison Department to build a new secure hospital.[2]
Carstairs has gained a certain notoriety as the location of the State Hospital (also known as Carstairs Hospital), a maximum-security psychiatric facility where some of Scotland and Northern Ireland's most severe cases of mental illness are treated. Many of the patients have been convicted of serious offences and some are incarcerated at the facility indefinitely.
Transport
The main road running through Carstairs is the A70 road. Carstairs is served by bus route 37 and 137, operated by Stuart's Coaches of Carluke.
Carstairs is served by Carstairs railway station on the West Coast Main Line and Carstairs is also the location of a triangular junction where the line to Edinburgh diverges from the mainline.
References
External links
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Coordinates: 55°42′N 3°42′W / 55.700°N 3.700°W
