Thorntonhall

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Thorntonhall is a small village to the west of East Kilbride, in South Lanarkshire, but directly adjacent to the border with East Renfrewshire. It is served by its own railway station. It also lies close to the village of Jackton, with which it shares a newsletter, the Peel News, named after the Peel Road connecting the two villages.

Thorntonhall has a very interesting history reflecting the social changes of the last 400 years and in particular the last 120 years. It was originally just a farm that had added to it some major buildings. The then 'hall' was bought and greatly improved by a grocer called Cooper who had shops throughout the west of Scotland. Another grand house was built at Ravenscroft , again on a small hilltop. These two and the railway station were probably the catalyst for a great plan to build a mini-edinburgh style suburb of crescents and avenues. Only 3 houses were completed and then World War 1 intervened.

Pre- and during World War 2 it was one of the sites selected for relocation of government depts to avoid bombing raids.

Post war it became part of the East Kilbride New Town and this lead to a large number of individual houses in this free standing village. That relative isolation lead to more very up market housing development on a small scale throughout the period 1970 to 2000.This situation and the lack of council housing may be why the proportion of millionaires in Thorntonhall is the highest in Scotland.

[edit] External links

http://members.lycos.co.uk/peelnews/ - Peel News