Nitshill is a suburb on the south side of Glasgow. It was originally a coal mining village; the Nitshill Colliery was the scene of one of Scotland's worst mining disasters—on March 15 1851, the mine was rocked by a terrible explosion in which 61 men and boys lost their lives.

The village fell within the county of Renfrewshire until about the 1920s, when it was incorporated into the city of Glasgow. The consequences of the change in local government were mainly related to education (each local authority had its own education department which controlled the schools in its area) and community services such as roads, water, sewerage and housing.

The latter resulted in the village being expanded to accommodate the housing schemes required to relocate people during the Glasgow slum clearances in the 1950s and 1960s. The village has become a low socio-economic suburb on the main Glasgow-Kilmarnock road with high unemployment and fortified shops.

However, there has been a move towards improving the suburb with the building of The Open Museum, Nitshill, which is a new purpose-built museum storage facility and visitor centre.

The poet and folk singer Jock Purdon was born and grew up in Nitshill.

External link

Open Museum Nitshill