This is a story about how an object found on the outside of an Indian Restaurant can provide a window into Coatbridge’s locomotive and military history…
Patrons and passers-by may have spotted this granite memorial near the entrance to the Shimla Cottage on Sunnyside Road and wondered at its significance. The best way to explain this is by taking you back – over 100 years ago – to where it came from.
The Kipps War Memorial, 2024 Photo Credit: Rachael Currie
‘The Men from Kipps’ and the First World War
The metal lettering is a little faded but the top inscription reads:
‘In Commemoration of the Men from Kipps L.R. Dept. N.B.R.
Who Served in the Great War 1914-1919’
Kipps Locomotive Depot, near Airdrie (1961) © Ben Brooksbank, Available at: geograph
Kipps was a branch of the North British Railway, and its Locomotive Repair Department was a shed and yard located just east of the memorial’s current position near Coatbridge Sunnyside Station. Here is a general outline of the location of Kipps Yard around the time that it was constructed in 1864, and what the site looks like today:
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland maps.nls.uk
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland maps.nls.uk
The memorial plaque was unveiled on the 21st March 1922 by Mr William Whitelaw, the chairman of the North British Railway Company, and features the names of 39 men, employed by the Kipps branch, that served in the First World War. It was placed on the wall of Kipps Engine Shed office that faced the main running lines between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and between Kipps and Sunnyside Station.
The Railway Club
Due to modernisation, Kipps was officially closed to steam by the early 1960s. Then, after several years housing Diesel Locomotives, the site was eventually demolished in 1975. By this time, Coatbridge’s Railway Staff Association for Scotland, had established a social club not far from Coatbridge Sunnyside Station.
During the clearance of the Kipps site, the local railwaymen managed to recover the old war memorial that had decorated the wall of Kipps’ Engine Shed, and decided that their new ‘Railway Club’ would be the best place to continue to display this monument to their co-workers. The plaque remains there to this day.
Locomotion?
Ever since its transfer to Sunnyside Road, the memorial has survived the subsequent decline of the Railway Club, and later changes to the property on which it is affixed. However, there have been calls by some locals for the monument to be moved to the station house at Coatbridge Sunnyside as a way of preserving its historical connection to the Railway. These changes are yet to be seen, but the fact that this 102 year old artefact still remains intact, is not only a testament to physical endurance, but also the persistence of memory.
Info about the author:
Rachael Currie is a Volunteer Digital Collections Assistant within the Curatorial Team, North Lanarkshire Council Museums & Collections.