There’s a few things happening this week in anticipation of the Blantyre Pit Disaster Anniversary this coming Sunday, 22nd October.
Amongst ongoing activities to remember our history and heritage, we’re pleased to announce that the Memorial Stone at Dalbeth Cemetery (St Peters) has been fully renovated and cleaned up this week! This stone remembers the Catholic miners who died in the disaster, some of whom are buried at Dalbeth.
The transformation is now complete and looking rather special as you can see from ‘before and after’ photos.
Thanks have to go to Frazer McGown and the team at Joseph Potts Funeral Directors in Blantyre who organised the task after hearing a few weeks ago that the stone needed some attention.
Permission had to be sought first from the Archdiocese, who allowed the work to go ahead.
Memorial Consultants Macintyre Memorials who undertook the renovation on behalf of Joseph Potts, told us, “We have done what we can to restore and preserve this stone. It’s old and made of soft sandstone. We have gone over it all by hand, however we could not use any abrasive tools as it would open up the surface and cause the stone to deteriorate over a period of time. We have dressed the surfaces and lettering is a lot clearer now.”
Frazer added, “Thank you for highlighting this through the Facebook Page for the Blantyre Project. We didn’t require any funding and as a long serving business to the families of Blantyre we were privileged to undertake the restoration of the memorial.”
This was a wonderful project for the community. Have to agree, it now looks fantastic and what a transformation! Well done to everybody involved.
