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( New Lanark)
Coordinates 55°40'N 3°47'W? / ?55.66, -3.78 The New Lanark mills operated until 1968. After a period of decline, the New Lanark Conservation Trust was founded in 1975 to prevent demolition of the village. As of 2006, most of the buildings have been restored and the village has become a major tourist attraction. It is one of four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Scotland and an Anchor Point of ERIH - The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The New Lanark cotton mills were founded in 1786, by David Dale. Dale was one of the self-made "Burgher Gentry" of Glasgow who, like most of this gentry, had a summer retreat, an estate at Rosebank, Cambuslang, not far from the Falls of Clyde, which have been painted by J. M. W. Turner and many other artists. Dale sold the mills, lands and village in the early 19th century (for £60,000, repayable over 20 years) to a partnership that included Dale's son-in-law Robert Owen. Owen was an industrialist who carried on his father-in-law's philanthropic approach to industrial working and who subsequently became an influential social reformer. New Lanark, with its social and welfare programmes, epitomised his Utopian socialism (see also Owenism).
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