Location type

Name and dates

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Description

This location is considered to be the first station in, or rather near, Airdrie.

This station was situated between Leaend, north of the line, and Garden Square, south of the line. The station was around a third of a mile NNW of Airdrie House and two thirds of a mile NW from the town of Airdrie itself.

It has been described as being either on a siding or being on the main line. Both are accurate. The through main line was on an embankment at this location, just north of the station, climbing the lower Ballochney Incline (Commonhead Incline). The station was on a level siding which was reached from Kipps Junction Incline Foot to the west.

On the 1864 OS map there is a suggestion of a siding on the south side of the line and approached from the west. This may have led to the Old Quarry, just to the east and north of Garden Square. If this siding were the station, and given that it is known the station had a building large enough to be rented out after station closure, this siding may have run to the two red buildings (red indicates stone built) on the immediate south side of the line.

Garden Square was built in 1830 at Leaend, a village for railway workers.

This same building may have been alongside a platform at the top of the embankment.

The 'lots' of the construction of the line imply that the station was on a branch, simply because lot 1 ran from the M&K Kipps branch to Leaend and lot 2 ran from Mosside to the incline head. Were Leaend on the main line lot 2 might be expected to have run from Leaend to the incline head.

Finally, considering the lot lengths. Lot 2 was 2123 yards long. Measured from the incline head this runs west and finishes at the incline foot where the Thrushbush branch commenced, a point some way east of Kipps. Lot 1 was 1224 yard long. Measured from Leaend this runs in parallel as far as the incline foot and continues west to just east of Kipps level crossing and west of the later Kipps Junction, a location likely to have been the meeting point of the M&K and Ballochney. If measured from the incline foot this ran as far west as Greenside Junction, which seems unlikely. Indeed, why would the station be called Leaend?

Leaend, then, is likely to have been on a short siding.

Tags

Aliases

External links