Bellshill is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, two miles north of Motherwell. Since 1996 it has been situated in the Greater Glasgow metropolitan area. The town has a population of 20,705 (2001). The earliest record of settlement in the Bellshill area is a village called Belmill, recorded on a map by Timothy Pont published in 1654. The village consisted of a row of quarry workers' houses owned by Mr. Bell, who owned a stone quarry to the south of Belmill. After the quarry closed, the village disappeared and a settlement developed nearby called Crossgates. About 1810, this new settlement took on the name Bellshill and continued to grow absorbing nearby villages such as Black Moss and Sykehead.