Monkland Canal

The Monkland Canal once ran for 12 miles (19 km) from Woodhall to Glasgow having been developed to serve the coal mines of North Lanarkshire. The Glasgow terminus was at the Monkland basin, close to Glasgow Cathedral. From there it linked was Port Dundas with the Glasgow branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Work began under the direction of engineer James Watt (1736 - 1819) in 1770 and the canal opened in 1793 having cost £120,000. In the first half of the 19th Century the Monkland Canal was the most profitable in Scotland and had a strategic role in the industrial development of Glasgow. Between 1850 and 1887, barges were raised and lowered along a steam-driven inclined plane at Blackhill.

The Monkland Canal merged with the Forth & Clyde in 1867, when the Caledonian Railway Company took over both waterways. As the coal mines and iron-stone quarries around the canal became exhausted, so the decline continued and traffic ceased completely in 1935. The canal continued only to supply water to the Forth and Clyde and successive sections of the canal were filled in through until the 1960s. The route of canal provided a useful corridor for the M8 motorway to enter the city. Today the canal is best seen in Drumpellier Country Park in Coatbridge.

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