A Walk Through The Village

As you approach the village from the east there was a small row of 4 or 5 cottages immediately after Seabegs Wood or The Doctor's Wood as it was called locally. The site is now used to store road materials. This was called Venezia and belonged to the brickworks. Further on is Dalnair Cottage still standing at the side of the pend under the canal and was owned by Stein's This was occupied by the Reed family.

At the top of the hill on the south side is Muirhead Cottage which was once a farm but is now only a villa. It was occupied by the Reid family and later by Jimmy Buchanan and his family and on the other side of the road is Lockpark Cottage which was occupied by the Millar family.

We have now reached the east end of Allandale but before the rows of cottages was the White House, also long gone occupied by Sam Reid and his family. We are now in the main part of the village, the two neat rows of cottages faced with red Dumfries sandstone and divided every ten houses with a passage or close.

On the north side were another four blocks of houses which were the last to be built. These were roughly all of a similar layout. There was a living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom on the ground floor and a bedroom upstairs.

We continue our tour from the west end of the village up the slight incline to the post office and sweet shop at the top of the hill. This shop is still in existence. The shop was locally known as 'the dairy' for some reason.

On the other side of the road from the store, a road went off under the railway bridge then forked again with one road going up the hill to the east entrance to the brickworks and the other going of to the east towards Woodend.

Back down on the main road, next to the store was the football field and changing hut then further along was the bowling green which also belonged to the brickworks and was called the John G. Stein Bowling Club.