The Monkland Canal was Scotland's first waterway and was to prove the only one to make money. Much has now been infilled for motorway and other uses, but not here where it is a sylvan corridor close to the North Calder Water, a tributary of the River Clyde.

Maggie's Bridge began about 1794 as a waggonway bridge carrying a horse-hauled line from a coalpit on the Woodhall estate over a viaduct across the North Calder Water (piers are largely intact) and via an embankment to a wharf on the canal's north side for transit by 'scow', again horse-hauled, to Glasgow.

There was a sizeable settlement of miners' rows adjacent to the embankment.

When steam railways came on the scene, the waggonway was given up, but "Maggie", a local woman, was successful in having the canal crossing retained for access to Calderbank, a village with limited services.

Maggie's Bridge is thus one of a suite of features of industrial archaeology that should be better known. It is now an example of early 'woman power' and needs our best efforts to restore and re-open it.
The Monkland Canal closed to navigation in 1952 but has remained the primary source of water for the Port Dundas Branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Some sections are still in water today, notably the eastern one between Woodhall and east Coatbridge and between the west of that town and Cuilhill. The rest of the waterway to Port Dundas was converted into a culvert to maintain the water flow, and much of it now lies beneath the M8 motorway which was constructed along its path in the early 1970s but still managed by Scottish Canals.

Text and photos: Ann Glen, with thanks.