Bargeddie developed as part of a mining community in the western part of the Old Monkland Parish and other local industries followed such as a brickworks,
opened in 1900, which at one time produced 4'/2 million bricks per year.

Roy's map of 1750 shows a village named "Bargeddy" and Forrest's map of 1801 has a hamlet name "Balgedy".  This suggests that the original name comes from "Bal" - gaelic for a settlement and possibly from the gaelic word 'geadaibh' meaning a ploughed field!

The 1801 map shows "Balgedy" surrounded by a large number of thin strips of fields, alternatively owned by Messrs Wark and Muirhead.   These narrow fields, without hedge or tree boundaries, were the last remains of the traditional "runrig" pattern of field management. By 1817 Forrest discovered that Bargeddie House was in the hands of Mr Wark who had replaced the runrig pattern with a modern large field pattern.

It has been said that Bargeddie was at the cutting edge of Victorian technology - albeit briefly!  In 1864 the Lochwood Pit at Cuilhill, owned by the Bairds, saw the operation of the first chain-driven coal cutting machine in Scotland.   It was known as "The Gartsherrie"  and though it was plagued with unreliability, it became the prototype for mechanical coal-cutting machines right up to the 20th century. 

In 1864 Bargeddie was chosen by the Baird Trust as the site for a new church schools to service the nearby mining villages of Cuilhill and Langmuir.   It was chosen because of its central position and its location on the main road.  

Bargeddie Parish Church was built in 1876.  It is isolated from Bargeddie and was built on land donated by the Misses Black, owners of Heatheryknowe.  One of them later married the first minister of the church.

The three villages flourished in the early days of coal.   Coals from Bargeddie and Langmuir were transported by rail to the Monkland Canal at Cuilhill Gullet for onward shipment  to Glasgow.  The Gullet was a transhipment terminal for the Drumpelier Railway which was built in 1847 and by 1849 it was sending 900 boat loads of coal per year to Glasgow.    As well as the Bargeddie pits it serviced other pits such as Braehead and Bredisholm.  This line continued until 1896.  Cuilhill also had a small boatyard for repairing the canal boats.

Original drawing for Bargeddie School
(South Elevation)

Bargeddie School was built in 1894. Drumpark Special School was built in 1929 and continues to fulfil an important role, providing an education for handicapped children..  Bargeddie expanded in the 1930's and after the Second World War with the creation of a major housing estate. Most of it's 3000 inhabitants came from Glasgow and other parts of the Lanarkshire County Council area rather than from Coatbridge.  Cuilhill and Langmuir  have disappeared along with the pits and miners rows.  The name of Langmuir was absorbed into Bargeddie.   The population of Bargeddie in 1981 was 2,624.

It was in 1975 when Monklands District was created, that Bargeddie housing, leisure and cleansing were brought together with Coatbridge.  Bargeddie is now part of north Lanarkshire.

 However recent years has seen the upsurge in private housing developments and in one area alone there will be over 1000 "executive style houses.