Viewpark, United Kingdom

Viewpark House mansion had a varied history: built in the 1830s to a design by noted architect John Baird, from the 1850s to the 1900s it was the home of the Addie family who controlled the local mines, who extended the estate to the limits of what would become the housing development, it then became a women's refuge, housed Belgian refugees of World War I and afterwards was divided into small individual apartments. The house, like others in the area, was demolished in the 1950s, but its grounds - Viewpark Gardens - are still present and used by the community as a park, allotments area and walled flower garden including a greenhouse, popular for wedding photography due to its backdrop of flora and original brickwork features. The gardens contained a group of life-sized sculptures, of which only two remain: Hercules and Athena. They were inspired by Aesop's fables and may be the work of Robert Forrest, whose sculpture was collected by another wealthy Lanarkshire coal merchant, Sir James Watson, for his estate at Earnock.

The post-World War II development was originally built to house miners and was erected quickly. Construction work on "The Scheme" began in the late 1940s with houses built in the area of Rowantree Avenue occupied around 1950, supplementing housing built adjacent and parallel to the "Top Road" (Old Edinburgh Road) where the local police station (the siren for which continued to sound practice air raid warnings into the 1960s) could be found, alongside the local football ground and opposite The Royal Oak Bar. Dominic's Shop (now long closed) alongside "The Lane" allowed quick access to the adjoining community and the local swing park on Douglas Street - named for the association with the Douglas Support estate the houses were built upon.

By 1956 the main thoroughfare in northern Viewpark, Laburnum Road, often referred to as "The Burma Road" in reference to its length, was well underway in its construction - most homes built off it were occupied by the early 1960s. Also in 1956, the local council set up what has now become Burnhead Bowling Club, along with an adjacent tennis court. A new church, Burnhead Parish Churchwas built at the eastern end of Laburnum Road opposite its junction with Burnhead Street. The other church in the area situated on Old Edinburgh Road is named Viewpark Parish Church (formed in 1933 from a union between the small Thornwood, Aitkenhead and Bothwellpark miners' churches) but would usually be considered to be in Tannochside rather than Viewpark.

A shopping complex was added in the centre of the new housing, aptly located in Market Place just off Burnhead Street, opposite the old rose gardens (now long gone, replaced by the Burnhead Community Centre, Viewpark Library, Liber8 sports complex and Viewpark Health Centre). Immediately behind this cluster of amenities is the Gala Day Park (Viewpark is one of the few villages in North Lanarkshire still to hold a Gala day each summer) where the local Miners Welfare club would organise their annual MayDay celebration where each child was presented with a box of Tunnock's cakes and fancies after competing in games and races.

The arrival of industries such as Ranco Motors and the Caterpillar Tractor Company (which opened its doors in 1957) created growth in the population, in combination with an influx of displaced families into the Viewpark area from the demolition of the miners' homes called "The Raws" in Tannochside, to release land for the erection of the Caterpillar factory. A similar fate befell the Miners' Rows at Cockhill, located due east of Laburnum Road; that land was utilised as a football field, along with an area of shops on the north side of Old Edinburgh Road. Kerr's Farm at Cockhill also disappeared and that land, which extended between Laburnum Road and the new A725 bypass road, was used to create Righead Industrial Estate which today separates Viewpark from Bellshill.