Coalburn, South Lanarkshire

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Coalburn is a village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK.

1 History
2 One Stop Shop
3 Local pool
4 Fame
5 External links

[edit] History

Coalburn is a small isolated village that lies on the Coal Burn, a tributary of the Douglas Water, 3 miles (5 km) south of Lesmahagow. Coalburn developed from the 1850s as a railway settlement associated with local coal mines. With the closure of the last colliery in 1965 and the railway in 1971, the village population declined from a peak of nearly 2,300 to 1,000.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] One Stop Shop

In order to provide a better quality of life the people of Coalburn have worked over the last few years to fund and renovate The Coalburn Miners Welfare by developing a modern One Stop Shop. The Coalburn One Stop Shop was opened just before Christmas 2003 and with the help of funding from Rural Challenge, Leader and many more. The One Stop Shop provides a number of community facilities under one roof. The aim was to help the community to develop IT skills, access training for jobs and improve the local childcare facilities. The One Stop Shop project has managed to maintain these aims and provide the community with various services of interest to young people and others, such as an IT suite, internet access, Cruets Cafe, a new childcare facility, The Busy Bees, activity groups, various advice and employment services as well as an archive of local heritage for community use.

[edit] Local pool

Coalburn Leisure Complex is a multi-purpose wet and dry sports and leisure centre, with state of the art health and fitness facilities and was opened in 1997, by a gladiator'Siren'. Facilities available include:

20 metre swimming pool
Beauty within
Wide range of fitness classes, including body attack, body blast, aquafit, etc
The Club gym
Community hall
Creche
Health suite
Alternative therapies inc Reiki, indian head massage, swedish massage

[edit] Fame

Coalburn was used as a location in the film The Big Man starring the Billy Connelly.

Former Scottish football internationalist Archibald Glen was born in the village.

At Christmas, a local man Danny Meikle's house has over a million Xmas lights on it which attracts people from all over Scotland. He has appeared on GMTV and Scotland Today to name but a few.

The opencast mine that opened in the village in the late 1980s became the biggest mine in Europe by the early 1990s^{[citation needed]}.