Carfin - Izeria

Carfin (Scottish Gaelic: An Càrn Fionn, meaning the White Cairn) is a village in North Lanarkshire in the central lowlands of Scotland, situated to the north-east of Motherwell. Most local amenities are shared with the adjacent villages of Holytown, Newarthill and New Stevenston which have a combined population of around 20,000 across the four localities.

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Carfin Grotto

Carfin Lourdes Grotto is a Catholic shrine in Scotland dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and created in the early twentieth century. The "Carfin Grotto", as the shrine is locally termed, was the brainchild of Canon Thomas N. Taylor (died 1963), parish priest of St. Francis Xavier's Parish in the small, mining village of Carfin, which lies two miles east of Motherwell, in the West of Scotland. Following a trip to France's principal Marian shrine at Lourdes, Taylor's vision was to build a religious memorial in honour of the Virgin Mary based on the template of the Grotto of Massabielle. To realize this vision became his life's work. Since its opening in the early 1920s, the Grotto has attracted pilgrims in the hundreds of thousands and its environs have been modified and enhanced with rich Catholic symbols and buildings. The grotto shrine offers a pilgrimage season with Sunday processions, rosaries, outdoor Masses and dedicated feast day events which run annually from early May until late September.

Carfin railway station

Carfin railway station is a railway station serving both Carfin and Newarthill in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is 14 miles (22 km) southeast of Glasgow Central railway station on the Shotts Line between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It contains two platforms; one for trains in the direction of Glasgow, and the other for trains to Edinburgh Waverley via Shotts. Like the following stop on the Shotts Line, Holytown, the location of the station is ambiguous. It is located on the border between Carfin and Newarthill, for much of its recent history closer to a housing estate in the latter. It is now bordered immediately on both sides by housing developments.

Ravenscraig

Ravenscraig is a housing development and historic village located in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, one point five miles (two kilometres) north-east of central Motherwell. Ravenscraig was formerly the site of Ravenscraig steelworks; once the largest hot strip steel mill in western Europe, the steelworks closed in 1992, and is now almost totally demolished. After over two decades of lying derelict, the empty land was redeveloped in the 2010s, with new houses and amenities being constructed on a large scale, with construction still ongoing into the 2020s. The main contributors to this project were Wilson Bowden Developments Ltd, Scottish Enterprise and Tata Steel Europe.

Ravenscraig steelworks

The Ravenscraig steelworks, operated by Colvilles and from 1967 by British Steel Corporation, consisted of an integrated iron and steel works and a hot strip steel mill. They were located in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. Motherwell was noted as the steel production capital of Scotland, nicknamed Steelopolis. Its skyline was dominated by the gas holder 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. Construction of the integrated iron and steel works started in 1954. The steel mill, which was built shortly after, was one of four in the United Kingdom. In 1992, when it closed down, it was the largest hot strip steel mill in Western Europe. The former steelworks and strip mill have now been cleared, and the site is in the process of becoming the new town of Ravenscraig.