This section of the canal was filled in many years ago. The water is carried underground from Summerlee Heritage Museum, beneath Bank Street Basin and emerges near Blair Bridge. The canal follows it's original route from Blair Bridge, past Drumpellier Country Park and on to the village of Bargeddie. Since the completion of the canal regeneration project, it is now possible to walk or cycle from Bank Street Basin, along the tow path, to Bargeddie. There are various art installations along this section of the route, including one dedicated to one of Janet Hamilton's well known poems.
Janet Hamilton (1795 - 1873)
Married at thirteen, mother of ten, self-taught in reading and writing (the latter in her 50s), by the time she died Janet Hamilton was the author of several books of poetry and essays. Never travelling farther than a few miles from her birthplace, her poems vividly bring to life the village of Langloan as it changed from being two rows of weavers' cottages to a place dominated by iron works, absorbed into the industrialised sprawl of Coatbridge. She illustrates the hard lives of the workers with great sympathy but without sentimentality, not sparing those who had succumbed to the evils of drink and slatternly behaviour.
Oor Location, by Janet Hamilton
A hunner funnels bleezin', reekin',
Cóal an' ironstane charrin', smeekin';
Navvies, miners, keepers, fillers,
Puddlers, rollers, iron millers;
Reestit, reekit, raggit laddies,
Firemen, enginemen, an' paddies;
Boatmen, banksmen, rough and rattlin',
'Bout the wecht wi' colliers battlin',
Sweatin', swearin', fechtin' drinkin',
Change-house bells an' gill-stoups clinkin';
Police—ready men and willin'—
Aye at han' whan stoups are fillin',
Clerks, an' counter-loupers plenty,
Wi' trim moustache and whiskers dainty—
Chaps that winna staun at trifles,
Min' ye they can han'le rifles.
'Bout the wives in oor location,
An' the lassies' botheration,
Some are decent, some are dandies,
An' a gey wheen drucken randies,
Aye tae neebors' hooses sailin',
Greetin' bairns ahint them trailin',
Gaun for nouther bread nor butter,
Just tae drink an' rin the cutter.
Oh, the dreadfu' curse o' drinkin'!
Men are ill, but tae my thinkin',
Lukin' through the drucken fock,
There's a Jenny for ilk Jock.
Oh the dool an' desolation,
An' the havoc in the nation,
Wrocht by dirty, drucken wives!
Oh hoo mony bairnies' lives
Lost ilk year through their neglec';
Like a millstane roun' the neck
O' the strugglin', toilin' masses
Hing drucken wives an' wanton lassies.
Tae see sae mony unwed mithers
Is sure a shame that taps a' ithers.
An' noo I'm fairly set a-gaun,
On baith the whisky-shop and pawn;
I'll speak my min'—and whatfor no?
Frae whence cums misery, want, an' wo,
The ruin, crime, disgrace, an' shame,
That quenches a' the lichts o' hame?
Ye needna speer, the feck ot's drawn
Out o' the change-hoose an' the pawn.
Sin and death, as poets tell,
On ilk side the doors o' hell
Wait tae haurl mortals in;
Death gets a' that's catcht by sin:
There are doors whaur death an' sin
Draw their tens o' thoosan's in;
Thick and thrang we see them gaun,
First the dram-shop, then the pawn;
Owre a' kin's o' ruination,
Drink's the king in oor location
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