Puzzle relating to Valuation Rolls

[LizzieS]

Hi,

I have recently been looking at the Valuation Rolls for various members of my family tree. There are several anomalies but one I wonder if someone can help with.
Its relating to Peter Cunningham, Engineer.

1875 Valuation - 88 Edinburgh Road, Old Monkland
1881 Census - 88 Bank St, Old Monkland
1885 Valuation - 88 Edinburgh Road, Old Monkland
He dies in 1890 in Bank St though at 201.
It just seems strange to go from Edinburgh Road to Bank St and back and to the same number in each St - 88. Is this just coincidence or were these streets one and the same?
Lizzie

[rossm]

Hi Lizzie,

It's a slight stretch of the imagination, but looking at the mid 19th century maps for Coatbridge, Bank Street is part of the main road through town, between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It could therefore be argued that it is the 'Edinburgh Road'. However, the maps never refer to it as anything other than Bank Street. It's also on the west side of the town, so i would have thought it more accurate to call it the 'Glasgow Road'. I'd also have thought the VR would use the proper name of the street rather than a colloquialism.

Is it possible one is a business address whilst the other is a home address? If there any surrounding addresses on the same page in the Valuation Roll which aren't in Edinburgh Rd then this might give a clue whether it's the same area.

Cheers

Ross

[LizzieS]

Hi Ross,

Thanks for your reply. I'd just about given up hoping someone might have a clue!

88 Edinburgh Road on the VR for both 1875 and 85 is a house. The previous addresses are in Iron Row and the following ones are in Back Row then Brown Square. Could you perhaps look at your maps and see if that helps at all?

Thanks for your help.

Lizzie

[rossm]

Hi again,

Still nothing definitive for you I'm afraid, but I'm more convinced than before that it's all one place. The map I'm looking at is here:

http://maps.nls.uk/view/74955769

You'll find Brown's Square in the middle of the bottom third of the map, just to the west of Langloan Iron Works. Bank Street is the name of the road leading from Coatbridge to Langloan (along the bank of the canal) and meets Langloan just to the north of the square. I suspect from the perspective of someone living in the village of Langloan it makes more sense to call this the 'Edinburgh Road'. I can't find Back Row or Iron Row on the map, but these may have been generic names associated with the Ironworkers houses.

Sorry I can't be more certain, but it looks like one of these cases where a lot of small mining and ironworking villages grew into one large industrial landscape, and the road has changed name over time (and perhaps had different names depending on which 'village' you lived in).

Cheers

Ross

[LizzieS]

Hi Ross,

I'm sure you are right. I wonder when local authorities took over streets and the names became set

I was trawling about the web when I came across an article "Memories of Langloan". It was memories of 1930's so a bit later than the period I am looking at nevertheless it solves why Back Row is not on the map. It states that part of Buchanan Street was familiarly known as Back Row and I see that is near Bank Street. It also mentions that Iron Row ran along the back of Kirks Land.

In the middle of the night I had one of those flashes of inspiration I thought of looking at the neighbours in the 1881 census to see if any were the same in the VR rolls, don't know why that hadn't occurred before. Unfortunately I had only bought the LDS one so it didn't show them. However decided I had to find out so purchased the normal one and Bingo several of the names were the same in both 1875 and 1885. I think that proves that Bank St and Edinburgh Road were one and the same.

Thanks for your thoughts and the link to the map, they have helped me solve a mystery.

Liz