Qualla: Motherwell https://qualla.com/motherwell en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Motherwell https://qualla.com/motherwell Motherwell: Introduction https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit Ross Watson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the middle of the 1970s, more than 13,000 people in Motherwell worked in steel. Three vast cooling towers and a gas holder dominated the skyline so completely that the town had a nickname: Steelopolis. By 1992 the gas holder was being readied for demolition and the cooling towers stood empty. The closure of Ravenscraig ended large-scale steel making in Scotland in a single decision, taking 770 jobs immediately and an estimated 10,000 more in the supply chain. Three decades later the brownfield site is still being rebuilt as a new town. Motherwell itself has recovered, slowly, around what came after.

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Image: Ross Watson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Motherwell: From Lady Well to Burgh https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit Lairich Rig, CC BY-SA 2.0. The town's name comes from a well dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the Lady Well, the site of which is now marked by a plaque on Ladywell Road. Roman engineers built a road and a fort with a bath house here, where their route crossed the South Calder Water near Bothwellhaugh. The na...

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Image: Lairich Rig | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-from-lady-well-to-burgh.mp3 0:06 2 full Motherwell: Steelopolis https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit Ross Watson, CC BY-SA 2.0. What followed was a century of metal. Colville's mills grew into one of the great industrial complexes of Britain, eventually employing 13,000 people by the 1970s and dominating the skyline with the water tower and three cooling towers of Ravenscraig. The plant had one of the lon...

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Image: Ross Watson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-steelopolis.mp3 0:06 3 full Motherwell: The Steelmen https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit Lewismccabe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Motherwell Football Club was founded in 1886 and is known as the Steelmen, the name a salute to the industry that built the town. They play in the Scottish Premiership at Fir Park Stadium, and have remained continuously in the top division since the mid-1980s, no small achievemen...

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Image: Lewismccabe | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-the-steelmen.mp3 0:06 4 full Motherwell: Strathclyde Park https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Supergolden assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. Strathclyde Country Park, on the western edge of town, is built over the buried village of Bothwellhaugh, abandoned and flooded in the 1970s when the loch was created. Excavations have turned up a Roman mosaic, a Roman bath house and a bridge. The park has hosted Commonwealth Gam...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-strathclyde-park.mp3 0:06 5 full Motherwell: Notable Sons and Daughters https://qualla.com/motherwell/ Photo credit Elliott Simpson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Motherwell has produced an unusually broad cast of public figures. Sir Matt Busby, the manager who rebuilt Manchester United after the Munich disaster, attended Our Lady's High School. Billy McNeill, captain of Celtic's 1967 Lisbon Lions, was a fellow pupil, as more recently was ...

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Image: Elliott Simpson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/motherwell-wp/gcvj-motherwell-notable-sons-and-daughters.mp3 0:06 6 full