Bellshill

: This article is about the town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. For other places of the same name, see Bellshill (disambiguation).

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Bellshill is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, situated in the suburbs of Glasgow two miles north of Motherwell. The town has a population of 20,705 (2001).

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The earliest record of settlement in the Bellshill area is a village called Belmill, recorded on a map by Timothy Pont published in 1654. The village consisted of a row of quarry workers houses owned by Mr. Bell, who owned a stone quarry to the south of Belmill. After the quarry closed, the village disappeared and a settlement developed nearby called Crossgates. About 1810, this new settlement took on the name Bellshill and continued to grow absorbing nearby villages such as Black Moss and Sykehead.

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After the mid-1800s, large coal and iron deposits were discovered nearby and a number of mines opened, the first being the Thankerton mine. This rapidly increased the size of the town, even bringing in immigrants from abroad (particularly Lithuania). A number of railway stations were opened in the area, including Mossend, Fallside and Bell Cross.

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In the 1870s, Bothwell Parochial Board built the two ward Bellshill Hospital. During World War I, the hospital specialised in infection diseases. In 1917, the hospital began to specialise as a Maternity Hospital, the first in the Lanarkshire area, with new dedicated maternity buildings being opened in 1958 and 1962. The hospital was the birth place of many famous faces including politician Robin Cook. footballer Ally McCoist and singer Sheena Easton. The hospital later closed down and was demolished in 2003 to build a large number of houses.

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According to a report by the Halifax Building Society in the first quarter of 2005 Bellshill was the UKs property hotspot with a 46% rise in house prices. This took the average property price to ?105,698 (according to reports published April 2005)

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North Lanarkshire: North Lanarkshire (Siorrachd Lannraig a Tuath in Gaelic) is one of 32 unitary council regions in Scotland. It borders onto City of Glasgow, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire and South Lanarkshire. The council covers parts of the traditional counties of Lanarkshire, Dunbartonshire, and Stirlingshire....

Scotland: :For other uses, see Scotland (disambiguation). See also British Isles (terminology)....

Suburb: :"Suburban" redirects here. For the sport utility vehicle (SUV), see Chevrolet Suburban....