The village of Rigside began life as a overspill housing estate for the adjacent village of Douglas Water, which itself began life as a small mining community, also known as Ponfeigh, in the county of Lanark. There were only a few cottages provided by the local drift mine owners to the miners as tied accommodation. However the miners were worked hard with long hours underground in waist deep water and this prompted the miners to strike in 1837 for more pay, but this request was rejected and the miners and their families were evicted. The mine owners advertised for people to replace them and the adverts were answered by weavers from Lanark and Irish labourers, but when they saw they were taking work from people who were also losing their homes they packed up and left.
Years later the village was to prosper from a large mine being opened by the Coltness Iron & Coal Company which became known as the Douglas Colliery where due to the excellent quality of coal, including the celebrated Rigside cannel coal, jobs were assured for many years.
All in all, over the years the village was host to a bowling green, tennis courts, a village green, swing park, quoiting green, butchers, bakers, Co-Operative grocery store, drapers, cobblers, abattoir, hairdressers, pub and other small shops. There was also the railway station taking you to Lanark in one direction and Ayr or Glasgow the other. The village also had its own band which went on to win many competitions, and football club; many of the footballers who played for Douglas Water Thistle went onto play for Rangers and Celtic.
There were many houses in the village but the village grew at such a rate that they began developing housing in Rigside. As the council began demolishing the houses in Douglas Water, due to subsidence caused by mining work underneath, and developing more houses in Rigside, the village began slowly disappearing. The school children were moved to a newly built school in Rigside, and when the pit closed in 1967 the bands, clubs, football teams, shops and railway disappeared as people scattered to Ayrshire, Fife, Lothian and England seeking work. Most of those houses and streets in Douglas Water are gone, only a handful of houses are left, and the same seems to be happening in Rigside, with the council demolishing houses as the population falls.
The Loudon Pond was once the place where the village held its May Day celebrations, annual Gala, and football games but again, due to subsidence, they moved the gatherings to the new football ground at the other end of the village. Loudon Pond is now a Community Nature Reserve, managed by a small group of volunteers who are always looking for new committee members and workday volunteers to help to preserve and improve this hidden gem. This cache has been placed by the Loudon Pond volunteers, please visit the reserve and you can contact them on Facebook "Making Rigside Greener Group" page or by emailing greenerrigside@gmail.com if you want to join them or help in any way.
The cache is hidden near the "old garage", which now houses a very popular breakfast and burger takeaway. The footpath by the side of the old garage is the route taken by the miners when going to work at the Douglas Colliery, the pit head was close to where Patterson's depot is now, and the cache is somewhere along the footpath.
There is usually space to park in the old garage forecourt, although the occasional HGV driver leaves a lorry there whilst getting a breakfast, it is a short walk from there to GZ.
The cache used to be a small bison and in spite of our request not to pull the container from its hiding place, that is exactly what kept happening, the container is now 35mm film container type at a slightly different level to the original..