About Us

Carluke Parish Historical Society

Carluke Parish Historical Society (CPHS) was formed after a meeting in 5th December 1978 by Mr James Russell, Mr Donald Pearce and Miss Isobel Batters.Public interest in old Carluke had been aroused by the building of a new "bypass" which had resulted in many buildings in the centre of town, including the much loved Rankin Memorial Town Hall and Library being demolished

After a talk by Mr Pearce, a steering committee was formed. The first AGM was held in the Community Centre in Carnwath Road on 25th January 1979, when our name and constitution were formally adopted. Since then succeeding committees have strived to follow the main aims of CPHS in that original constitution, namely,

• To stimulate public interest in and awareness of the natural features of and human activity in the Parish past and present.
• To discover, acquire, copy, compile and preserve all records, objects and artefacts of local interest.
• To work towards the eventual establishment of and thereafter to maintain or assist in maintaining a local museum or permanent exhibition place.
• To pursue these ends by means of meetings, exhibitions, lectures, publications, conferences and publicity.

Over the years, CPHS has added to our extensive archive. The computer and digital age has helped us greatly in copying and preserving records and photographs. - gone are the days of dark rooms and negatives, we now have a scanner and computer which do the work at the touch of a button.

Our speakers have always gone out to spread the word about or rich and varied history.

After much fundraising, we acquired our Heritage Centre in 1986. All are welcome at our monthly open mornings to browse and chat about Carluke. Visitors come from all over the world and the Centre can be opened at any time to make our rrecords available to researchers. Please contact us at cphs@live.co.uk

HIGHLIGHTS IN OUR HISTORY,1978-1988.
Carluke Parish Historical Society owes its foundations to a man from Bothwell. Mr Donald Pearce gave a public lecture on the history of Carluke at the end of 1978. The interest shown by the townspeople that night led to a steering committee being formed. Following on from this committee's groundwork came the first A.G.M. of Carluke Parish Historical Society in January 1979. The late James Russell was elected chairman. Those many years ago, for the society, meetings were very small with a ‘good‘ night meaning an attendance of about twelve stalwarts, braving the chills of the Holyoake Tearooms.

Probably the highlight of these early meetings was the ‘High Street Shops‘ night. Those who were there will not have forgotten Eddie Cunningham at one end of the hall and Miss Burton at the other trumping each other with their memories of the old town! Gradually attendance grew causing us to change venue four times.
Society work has also taken us outdoors. John McConville regularly took a group of us round the rights-of-way. Picnics on the banks of the Clyde
and scrambling on all fours up the steep gorge at Braidwood are indelibly marked on some members‘ memories. Braidwood is also where we held our open days at the Tower of Halbar.
The most successful, if judged by numbers attending, was when we had well over one hundred visitors from central Scotland. However personal highlights were probably when pancakes were cooked on the swee over the fire, when Kirsty McFarlane demonstrated spinning in the great hall or when Potts Pottery gave a pot-throwing demonstration in the open air. An open day of a very different kind happened in October 1988, when our 79 Hamilton Street opened.

It has taken ten years for us to find somewhere to house our archives but we finally did with a great deal of help from our members and the people of Carluke.
The archive collection is full of ordinary highlights. ‘Ordinary highlights‘ may seem a contradiction in terms and yet each photograph, each scrap of paper, each gift, though perhaps part of an ordinary life in Carluke becomes a highlight as part of the history of Carluke. Each member of the society will have his or her own highlights in the ten years of our history. Those mentioned above are a very few of mine.
Christine Warren