Motherwell

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Motherwell
Tobar na Màthar (Gaelic)


OS grid reference:	NS756563



Population:	30,311 (2001 census)



Council area:	North Lanarkshire
Constituent country:	Scotland
Sovereign state:	United Kingdom

Police force:	Strathclyde Police
Lieutenancy area:	Lanarkshire
Former county:	Lanarkshire

Post town:	MOTHERWELL
Postal:	ML1
Telephone:	01698


Scottish Parliament:	Motherwell and Wishaw Central Scotland
UK Parliament:	Motherwell and Wishaw
European Parliament:	Scotland

For the former parliamentary constituency, see Motherwell (UK Parliament constituency).

Brandon Parade, the main shopping street in Motherwell, on a typical Saturday

Motherwell (Tobar na Màthar in Gaelic) is a large town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, south east of Glasgow. The town was a burgh from 1865 until it merged with the burgh of Wishaw in 1920.

Motherwell was noted as the steel production capital of Scotland, nicknamed Steelopolis, with its skyline dominated by the water tower and three cooling towers of the Ravenscraig steel plant which closed in 1992. The Ravenscraig plant had one of the longest continuous casting, hot rolling, steel production facilities in the world before it was decommissioned. The closure of Ravenscraig signalled the end of large scale steel making in Scotland. In the past decade, Motherwell has to an extent recovered from the high unemployment and economic decline brought about by this collapse of heavy industry. A number of call centres and business parks such as Strathclyde Business Park have since set up in the region. Large employers include William Grant & Sons.

Motherwell is the headquarters for both North Lanarkshire Council, which is one of Scotland's most populous local authority areas, and of Strathclyde Police "N" division. These organisations cover an overall population of 327,000 people (93,000 in Motherwell and Wishaw) throughout the 183 square miles of North Lanarkshire.

Motherwell railway station - the penultimate stop on the West Coast Main Line before Glasgow.

Other attractions and sites within Motherwell District are Carfin Pilgrimage Centre and Carfin Grotto. The Grotto was built in nearby Carfin, in the 1920s, mainly by local residents and miners and was originally for the benefit of the Catholic Community, holding Processions and Pilgrimages most Sundays throughout the year and, in its heyday, saw many thousands attend open-air masses. Others who regularly use the Grotto are from the large Lithuanian and Polish communities who had settled in the area, although many travelled from around Britain to attend. The one disappointment for the local Catholic community was when Pope John Paul II visited Scotland in the 1980s and had hoped that he would visit the only Catholic Shrine in the country but were rewarded only with a "flypast" by his helicopter.

Motherwell Football Club was established in 1886. Known as the "Steelmen" because of the history of steel making in the area, they play in the Scottish Premier League from their home ground at Fir Park. They are managed by Maurice Malpas, who took over from Terry Butcher at the end of the 2005/06 season.

High flats in Motherwell

One of the town's most well-known "sons" is James Keir Hardie (1856 - 1915) who was born a few miles outside of Motherwell, and is one of the founders of the modern Labour Party.

1 Politics
2 Strathclyde Park
3 Local government district
4 External links

[edit] Politics

Motherwell is a consistently Labour-voting area. The Right Honourable John Reid was formerly the Member of Parliament for Motherwell North. This constituency, along with Motherwell South, was abolished in 1997 to be replaced with Motherwell and Wishaw. Since then the area has been represented in Westmister by Frank Roy MP.

In the Scottish Parliament, Motherwell is represented by First Minister Jack McConnell. His constituency area, Motherwell and Wishaw, is identical in boundaries to the UK parliamentary consituency.

[edit] Strathclyde Park

The biggest Fun Park in Scotland is based within Strathclyde Park, which features many sports facilities, as well as having woodland and grass areas ideal for visitors including bird-watchers, anglers, or people out for a quiet, leisurely time, and also features an excavated site of a Roman mosaic, although this has been covered to protect it. The park itself has also gained a reputation as a meeting place for gay encounters and also boy racers however local police patrols try to dissuade this element from the park.