Woodhall house, Calderbank

Woodhall is situated to the north of the M8 Motorway, between Carnbroe and Calderbank, 2½ miles southeast of Coatbridge.

The estate of Woodhall was bought by Daniel Campbell of Shawfield [1671 – 1753], known as ‘Great Daniel’.

Woodhall House was badly damaged by a mob, who had destroyed his house at Shawfield after the Malt Riots of 1725, but he remodelled Woodhall as a fine Palladian mansion to become his Glasgow home. The house remained in his family until the bankruptcy of Walter Campbell (1798 – 1855) in 1847. The house was never the same after a fire in 1850. Part of the shell was restored to habitation but was it was finally demolished in 1924.

The estate was already undermined by coal workings, which were soon producing a very healthy financial return of around £13,000 per year, The footings of the house and some of the designed landscape remain, but an amount has been lost to the motorway and Eurocentral.

Caledonian Mercury, 15 July 1725:

Hortus Kewensis, 1789:

William Aiton, from Woodhall to Kew:

1809 map of Woodhall:

Caledonian Mercury, 7 August 1809:

Caledonian Mercury, 12 December 1831:

Gardeners Magazine, 1832, Volume 8:

The Scotsman, 20 July 1842:

North British Agriculturalist, 25 April 1849:

Walter Henderson [1759-16 Jan 1832], became a specialist in growing citrus, peaches & pineapples in the hot house at Woodhall House. He developed a new nectarine called the Woodhall and in 1827 the Horticultural Society of London published his account of growing peaches.

North British Daily Mail, 29 June 1850:

Walter Frederick Campbell of Woodhall:

Illustrated London News, 24 February 1855:

Ordnance Survey book,1858:

A large unoccupied mansion having offices, ornamental grounds, a garden, and a considerable Estate attached, which for some time been under the Trustees of the late Mr. T. Campbell Esquire of Islay. The whole Estate has been let for minerals and every portion of the grounds, woods, Roads, Avenues, & Shruberies Etc. has been more or less destroyed or neglected, by the place being made almost public to the people employed at the minerals. The Ornamental grounds, shewn on Trace by a green shade, is the proper extent to which stipling should be done, as although the grounds are now arable and neglected etc. The House must, while it stands, have the character which belongs to houses of this class. The Gardens, said to have been one of the finest in the West of Scotland, is now occupied by a Row of Collier’s dwellings to which the name “Garden Row” is given.

Caledonian Mercury, 13 May 1862: