This photograph from 1987 shows the M8 Motorway, looking east from Gartcraig Bridge. The three multi-storey blocks in Cranhill in the background were built on what were once waste tips, forming a popular playground for children known locally as the "Sugarollie Mountains" (Sugarollie is a Glaswegian term for liquorice).
This stretch of the M8 is often referred to as the Monkland Motorway, as it was built on the bed of the Monkland Canal. The canal was once the most profitable in Scotland, carrying coal, iron, steel, timber and lime from the Coatbridge area to Glasgow, but by 1950 it had been abandoned and presented a health and safety hazard. When the demand for Glasgow-Edinburgh motorway became overwhelming (the first section opened in 1964), the canal provided a natural route through the east end of the city. The canal was infilled in 1972, and this section of the M8 opened a few years later.
Reference: Glasgow City Archives, TD1271/2/90
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
canals, council houses, Gartcraig Bridge, high rises, housing estates, housing schemes, M8 Motorway, Monkland Canal, Monkland Motorway, motorways, multi-storey flats, roads, Sugarollie Mountains, tower blocks, waste tips
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