In the early 1920s there was still a sizeable mining community in the hamlet at Blackbraes and as a remote location the Central Committee awarded it the not inconsiderable sum of £2,500. At a meeting in the autumn of 1923 the Blackbraes Miners’ Welfare Committee agreed to a levy of 2d per week on each miner in the area to pay for the running and maintenance of a hall. Construction work on the hall, with baths for the miners, began in February 1924 on a site near the top of the hill above the Blackbraes Schoolhouse (ie to the south). It was opened on 4 December 1925 by Robert Forrester of East Roughrigg Collieries at a gathering of over 200 people.
The institute building consisted of a hall, with a platform, capable of accommodating 250 people. Provision was made for cinematograph entertainments, and a small operating room was provided in the roof of the front building. On entering the building the reading and billiard rooms were on the right, and on the left was a suite of baths consisting of two slipper and two spray baths, with the necessary dressing accommodation. Complete systems of heating and electric lighting were installed – the electric power being generated by a small petrol motor. The contractors for the work were: brick work – James Murdoch & Co, Larbert; joiner work – Allan & Baxter, Glasgow; slater work – Turner Brothers Asbestos Co Ltd, Glasgow; roughcast work – James K Miller, Falkirk; plumber work – James Anderson & Co, Glasgow; plaster work – Robert Fraser, Polmont; glazier work – City Glass Co, Glasgow; painter work – Alex Anderson, Glasgow; heating installation – Shaw & Gibson, Glasgow. The whole scheme was designed and supervised by John Scotland & Sons, architects, Airdrie, with John Allan & Sons, measurers, Glasgow. The building actually cost £2,533.
The hall was soon busy with social functions such as dances, concerts and dinners. In 1928 an advert was placed for an orchestra to provide three hours of dancing weekly. A weekly whist drive was well attended. Most of these activities took place in the winter months from September to April or May. Repairs and maintenance were undertaken in the period of the summer closure, with some concerts in the evenings – in the summer of 1933 these were by the Repertory Players.
All seemed to be going well. Then the County Council started its program of slum clearance and moved families from Blackbraes and California to Shieldhill and Brightons. On 26 February 1934 Robert Paterson, secretary to Blackbraes and District Miners’ Welfare Society, wrote to the County Council stating that his Society had invested about £3,500 in providing recreational facilities for the district and it viewed with anxiety the housing policy which had by that date removed some 48 families from the district, thereby entailing a considerable loss of revenue to the Society.
Despite this change the Blackbraes Miners’ Welfare Society kept going, serving a large rural hinterland. Repairs to the hall were undertaken in May 1939 and the flat roof over the cinema operating box was replaced with a pitched one. Dancing at the hall was popular throughout the war and in October 1944 the maple floor was re-laid and electricity was provided from the mains. The two petrol engines of 2½ and 3 h.p., along with the charge board and batteries, were then sold off, as was a Robin Hood boiler.
As more and more houses were demolished it was inevitable that the Blackbraes Miners Welfare Institute would close down, though it was the 1970s before the hall was demolished.
Falkirk Local History Society 