Viewpark

Viewpark is an area in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. Situated immediately north-east of Uddingston (but on the other side of the M74 motorway), Viewpark is west of Bellshill. It has an estimated population of 13,916 in 2016, a figure which also includes the smaller adjoining neighbourhoods of Birkenshaw, Bellziehill, Calderbraes, Fallside and Tannochside under the Thorniewood ward of the local council.

==History== Viewpark takes its name from a rural estate of that name, located just off New Edinburgh Road (which dates from the early 19th century and is thus 'new' only by comparison to Old Edinburgh Road which runs parallel further north, and today is part of the A721), near to which was the Viewpark Colliery, one of several mines dug in the area between Uddingston, Bellshill and the North Calder Water including Rosehall, Tannochside and Bredisholm, each of which had several pits. The workers were housed in scattered hamlets of miners' row cottages at Aitkenhead/Nackerty, Thorniewood, Tannochside, Muirpark and Cockhill, while other mansions in the area included Thornwood House (the site of which was north of Lynnhurst), St Enoch's Hall (near Banyan Crescent today) and Fallside House (today at Quarrybrae Gardens), the latter of which had a railway station on the Clydesdale Junction Railway from the 1870s to the 1950s (this line and the Caledonian main line, a short distance to the north, are both still in use to day, although there is no local station). A section of Roman road was found in the grounds of Fallside House in 1952. Other local industries included a brickworks and an oilworks.