The easiest way to reach New Lanark is through the old Lanark, which apparently dates back to at least 1140 as a market town during the reign of King David I. Today, Lanark has a railway station that lies at the end of a spur off one of the many lines that link Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is a half-hourly service from Glasgow Central but, due to the layout of the track, no trains can travel down to Lanark from the east so travelling from Edinburgh requires a change at Motherwell as I did. Lanark is a pleasant enough town but there isn’t a great deal to do or see there so I walked through it quickly and made my way along the roads to New Lanark, which only took about 30 minutes to reach the outskirts of. The road down into New Lanark takes a long hairpin route to reach the valley of the River Clyde below but there are more direct footpaths through the woods for pedestrians such as myself. This was fine coming down but the shorter distance comes at the cost of a steeper incline on the way back up the hill. There is a small quiet graveyard in the woods here that might form part of the core zone but the maps on the UNESCO website, including in the original nomination file, were an incomprehensibly pixelated mess when I tried to access them.

Descending into the valley, there are the old mill buildings and the various amenities built for the workers including houses, a school, a church and so on. Some of these houses are still residential properties today whilst others are now shops and cafes with a handful of exhibits to explain the history of the site. As others have noted, these seem to be mostly aimed at local children. Given the site is otherwise free to access, the small charge for the visitor centre is probably not worth paying for most adult visitors but, on the other hand, £5 seems a reasonable donation towards the upkeep of the site even if the actual exhibitions that price unlocks aren’t too interesting. My favourite part of the site was not the village itself, which was fine if not spectacular, but walking south along the Clyde to view the many small waterfalls on this stretch of the river. This is a pleasant woodland walk and apparently home to peregrine falcons, although I did not see any. Along this walk is an early hydroelectric power station, known as Bonnington Power Station, which was built in 1926 and still appears functional. Incidentally, the world’s first hydroelectric generator system was built in 1886 elsewhere in the UK at Cragside, Northumberland, which I am a little surprised has seemingly never even been discussed for the UK’s tentative list. Whether the Falls of Clyde and Bonnington Power Station fall inside the core zone of New Lanark I do not know although I imagine they are at least inside the buffer zone and are a worthwhile diversion. This is especially true given that there isn’t a great deal to see in New Lanark itself. Whilst it is undoubtably significant as the precursor to the many other subsequent industrial model towns around the world, it doesn’t make for the most exciting of visits.