It was also the birthplace of one of the most iconic symbols of Lanarkshire's rural Upper Ward in the 20th Century, the county's famous Red Roads.

This year the Cairngryffe Quarry next to Pettinain celebrates no fewer than three important anniversaries in its long history.

The first is the 110th anniversary of its opening in 1898 during the late Victorian building boom which left much of the road and rail infrastructure we still depend on today.

The second — and perhaps most important to local folk — was the huge expansion of the works ordered by the old Lanarkshire County Council in 1938 to extract the millions of tons of the rare, rusty-coloured gravel which was used to create our much-loved Red Roads.

To the dismay of drivers now, some of these road surfaces are still in use in many parts of Clydesdale 70 years later!

In their day, though, they were the pride and joy of the Upper Ward with local drivers being able to boast, for at least 20 years, that they were motoring on perhaps the best country roads in Europe!

The third and most recent anniversary was 1988 when the quarry went into private ownership and was re-named Cloburn Quarry.

Clydesdale folk being Clydesdale folk, almost everyone stuck to the old name of Cairngryffe anyway!

In fact, Cloburn isn't the first name for the quarry created out of the highest hill in the former parish of Pettinain.

The County Council back in 1898 originally dubbed it the Grange Quarry but this, like Cloburn, didn't stick and the hill's own name, Cairngryffe, was soon officially adopted.

Cairngryffe is also, incidentally, the official name of the local parish now too!

Its location was not entirely down to the red stone of the hill itself; its proximity to the main West Coast railway line with links to Lanarkshire's then extensive local rail networks, was a big attraction in those days before large road transport lorries.

The Caledonian Railway originally created a special siding to serve the quarry and this was still in operation into the 1960's.

Road transport of the stone started to grow steadily from the 1920's onwards.

Even today, quarrying can be a dangerous job but it was even more so in pre-Health and Safety days.

There were at least three fatalities at Cairngryffe local historians have traced in the years between its opening and World War Two.

In November, 1900 the quarry claimed its first victim, 23 year old John Linden of Thankerton.

A four ton piece of rock fell on him with mercifully instant results.

He'd been working 20 feet off the quarry floor, trying to dislodge the boulder so it would fall to the ground for processing. Instead, the boulder took him with it.

Cairngryffe's second victim, 27 years later, was 14-year-old Thomas Laing who received fatal injuries when a loaded cart ran over his legs on the quarry's haul road.

A doctor from Carstairs Junction did his best for young Thomas at the scene and ordered him taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Sadly, he died there the next morning, having worked for just six weeks.

And in January 1939, 52-year-old James Meek died perhaps the most horrrific death at the quarry.

The resident of Milne Street, Carstairs was caught in the conveyor belt while carrying out maintenance work alone.

The machinery caught him by the left arm and it was a considerable time before workmates discovered and released him. By that time it was too late and he succummed to his injuries.

Whatever the tragedies, it was with some regret that it was learned in 1986 that the quarry was going to pass out of council ownership.

Since then the Cloburn Quarry Company has successfully carried on the workings, making a lot of local friends in Pettinain by creating a new haulage road straight onto the A73, by-passing the hamlet altogether.

Although no longer used for the roads of Lanarkshire, Cairngyrffe sends its stone around the world as specialist building material, China being one of its eager customers.

So it might be worthwhile taking a good look at the telly during the Olympic coverage...just to see if that marathon route through Beijing has a certain, very familiar reddish tint!