A community group with ambitious plans to save a historical building near Overtown made great progress while Lanarkshire was in lockdown.
Cambusnethan House, which is known as the Priory, was built in 1820 and belonged to the Lockhart family of Castlehill.
The priory was set for demolition just over 50 years ago before being bought over but it was seriously damaged by fire in the mid-1980s. It is now one of only a few surviving examples of 1800s neo-Gothic architecture in the country.
Since 2014 Friends of Cambusnethan Priory have been campaigning to prevent the neo-Gothic building’s condition deteriorating further and hope to return it to something approaching its former glory.
They’ve witnessed an increase in interest in their organisation and the priory over the last year.
Graham Smith from the group, said: “Lockdown has, in a fortunate way, been a great thing for the group. It has brought a considerable increase in the number of people visiting the building, mainly thanks to people using the route for their daily exercise.
“Our outdoor team spent time working on the grounds clearing a lot of scrub and debris. This made it much nicer and more accessible, and inadvertently created a community space. Word spread and this in turn brought more people down, increasing interest considerably. We’ve gained around another 1000 followers in the past year on social media.”
The community group has been ramping up their efforts at the priory over the last 12 months.
“We’ve made some significant progress over the past year or so,” Graham continued. “We’re a community interest company, as a CIC group, we will be running continual events and projects which involve the community. “We’ve had several new people come on board during the last year with the skills required to achieve what we want to do. “Ultimately we would like to take ownership of the building and use it as a hub in the centre of a community country park. It’s a long-term project.
“We’re almost seven years down the road and it’s taken us this long to get the right people in place.”
Darren Mitchell, from Stonehouse, captured a flavour of the priory recently and some of its magnificent architectural detail with his camera and posted the pics on the Facebook page; Castles and Ruins of Scotland.
The pictures not only brought comments on the building, but also the graffiti on show. The vandalism isn’t recent according to Darren.
He said: “Over the years I haven’t noticed any new damage by people which is positive.”
Friends of Cambusnethan Priory are actively encouraging people to visit the building and to get in touch with the group.
They hope to work on the building from the bottom up.
“The basement of the building is three-quarters intact, our vision is to start by making that serviceable as a visitors centre,” Graham revealed. “External power and water services are still there.
“If we can seal the entrance floor to stop water and dry it out then that would kick it off, and we can raise money and start to work our way through the building. The current owner has been very supportive of our efforts so far.”
He added: “Fantastic drone footage has been posted recently and you always have someone who hasn’t seen the place before. And it brings back memories for others, and that snowballs.
“It’s all about keeping the place in the public eye.”
You can find the group on Facebook or email them at cambusnethanpriory@gmail.com
They also have 2021 calendars for sale priced £6, or you can make a donation via their website: cambusnethanpriory.com
