West Lothian Heritage

Nights Out in the West End
The West End area of Fauldhouse was blessed with a railway station connecting to Scotland's major cities, and the district's only hotel; built to serve those travelling on business to this once thriving industrial village. The hotel, and the neat layout of miners rows that surrounded it, was the subject of a surprising number of picture postcards. These help you journey in the imagination between the streets and rows, even though little of these sc...
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Bedding Down at East Mains
On a cold winter’s night, the big smoking lum of Law’s pit must have been a welcome sight to the gentlemen (and occasional lady) of the road as they tramped their way between Scotland’s industrial centres. For a period the boiler-house and bothies of the shale pit offered the prospect of a little shelter from the wind and rain, and somewhere warm to lay your head for the night.
Law’s pit – officially “Stewartfield No.4” or “East Mains” was sunk by t...
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Treading the Boards in Broxburn
Broxburn’s first purpose-built cinema opened in 1913 on a narrow site set back slightly from East Main Street. Seating 1,100, the Central Picture House was the largest entertainment hall in the area and, as was usual at that time, was equipped with a small stage and dressing rooms for live performances.
In 1923, Broxburn Pictures Ltd., appointed an energetic new manager. Willie Harper had no previous experience in cinema, but seems to have been...
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Well. Well, Well.
Springs and wells were once regarded as places of spiritual and mystical significance. Perhaps the emergence of waters from beneath the ground was considered a link to an unseen underworld. Rituals at such special places might involve offerings and sacrifices, with the hope of being rewarded with good luck or a return to sound health. Such ancient customs and folklore were absorbed into Christian worship, and old beliefs became expressed in the language of s...
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Mid-Calder’s Bridge-End (or Midcalder's Bridgend)
Since the earliest records, the village of Mid Calder has boasted two bridges; a crossing of the Linnhouse water carrying the road to Edinburgh, and the North Bridge across the River Almond, carrying a road northward past Pumpherston towards Houstoun house. Both are shown on the earliest detailed map of the Lothians surveyed by Timothy Pont in about 1636.
The old bridge across the Linnhouse water was replaced by the present su...
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West Lothian Circles the World
For over 30 years, the good ship “West Lothian” sailed the world’s oceans, carrying cargoes (and the county name) to exotic-sounding ports around the globe.
“West Lothian” was a four-masted sailing ship (usually referred to as a barque), built in 1882 for Helensburgh shipping magnate, James Boyd. With a wrought-iron hull 280 feet in length, and a tonnage of about 1900 tons, she was built at a time when steam ships were beginning to dominate loca...
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Main Street, Winchburgh

An Explosive Story from West Calder
In February 1871, David Lyon walked into Andrew Mungle's general store and asked for a light for his pipe. Lyon was about 62 years old and was variously described as a tramp or a hawker, who in his own words “had travelled through Scotland for six and thirty years”. Some accounts suggest that Lyon was begging and making a nuisance of himself, and that shop staff starting to “chaff” him, throwing paraffin and threatening to set him alight.
I...
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Livingston dash cam footage – 1970's style
This short nostalgic snippet comes from a reel of 16mm film that pieces together various scenes of Livingston's roads during the early 1970's. It seems likely that these were rough footage for inclusion in one of the Development Corporation's promotional films. Shot from a moving car, you're taken from the M8, along the spine road, to streets winding between the flat-roofed Jesperson blocks of Craigshill; the new town's earliest com...munity.
The roads are familiar, but the landscape seems strange, with fields and open views in places that are now built-up or wooded.
From traffic-free M8, you were once able to travel at motorway speed (or above) along the spine road with little fear of speed cameras. On reaching Lizzie Bryce's roundabout you had little option to turn round and race up the other side of the dual carriageway.
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The Pleasure Gardens of Gavieside
Gavieside farm might at first appear an unremarkable cluster of drab agriculture sheds, surrounded by featureless fields, embellished with the occasional muddy puddle created by mining subsidence. However, clues survive to a far more elegant landscape that existed here over 250 years ago.
Roy’s military map, surveyed in the 1750’s provides a detailed and seemingly accurate picture of Gavieside (Iabelled “Gayside”) at that time. A private tree...
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Canvas Cathedrals and Tent Evangelists
Rather like the arrival of a travelling circus, the erection of a touring gospel tent often created a mood of excitement and anticipation. During the warm months of summer, a substantial bell tent would set up in park, field, or public space, where the word of the Lord would be preached twice daily on the Sabbath and on every workday evening. Gospel tents once toured many towns and villages in West Lothian. In Bathgate, tents were often ...set up on land beside Mill Road, while in Broxburn, a favourite site was near Easter Road, on the east side of the village.
Services would be conducted by a charismatic lay-preacher, promoting a simple but compelling message of finding salvation in Jesus. Special services were often provided for children. After two or more weeks in a village, a final soiree would be held, with music and refreshments, Following this celebration, the tent would be packed up and moved on to its next destination.
Such evangelical work was non-denominational and encouraged (or at least tolerated) by established churches, as it encouraged a regular pattern of worship. The missions were not universally welcomed however; the police commissioners of Bo'ness, in refusing permission to use a public site in 1894, commented that it was curious that the town had four or five ministers, all receiving large salaries, yet they had to “import evangelists from London”.
Many gospel tents were operated by the The Evangelization Society, a London-based organisation set up in 1864. This had a strong Scottish presence and local headquarters at the Grove Street Institute in Glasgow's Cowcaddens. The society toured a number of impressive tents. The one visiting Bo'ness in 1905 was described as
“a large bell tent 40 feet in diameter with a seating capacity for fully 400. The canvas of the tent is of an extra heavy quality, thus making the interior most comfortable and perfectly water-tight. Patent portable forms are brought with the tent and when these are in position they afford excellent seating accommodation. The necessary light is provided by six powerful paraffin lights, and on an autumn evening, when the tent is lit up and a congregation gathered within its canvas walls, one cannot but be struck with the delightful, cheerful and comfortable look of this moving meeting- place.”
The period 1890 – 1910 represented a golden age for tent evangelists, however gospel tents continued to tour Scotland well into the 1950's. The Evangelization Society still exists, but now operates only to grant aid the work of individual evangelists.
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The Most Incommodious and Disgraceful of all Disgraceful Stations
Whitburn's railway station was a humble affair, hidden away a mile to the east of the town and served by just a handful of passengers trains each day. During the “railway mania” of the 1840's, there were several proposals for great main lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow that would pass through Whitburn which, if they had come to fruition, might have seen the town grow into the industrial and commercial centre...
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Bridgend’s Shale Canyon
A strip of woodland, a little to the east of the present-day village of Bridgend, conceals the steep sides of a long cutting and old quarry workings where oil shale was once extracted to serve James Ross’ Philpstoun oil works. It’s one of the few places where you can still see oil shale rock exposed; but this strange, quiet, eerie landscape of mossy pools and twisted roots can only be properly explored in dry weather, and before the leaves return to th...
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A Postcard from Lizzie
In the spring of 1915, the patients of Bangour Asylum were transferred to mental hospitals throughout Scotland in order to make room for a huge influx of wounded servicemen. A steady shuttle of trains delivered the shattered victims of the trenches to the wards and public halls of Bangour. Once these were filled to overflowing, marquees were pitched in the hospital grounds to house a further seven hundred. At the height of the conflict, almost 3,000 pat...ients were housed in the “Edinburgh War Hospital” at Bangour, all hoping that the peaceful countryside setting would aid recovery to body and spirit. It was not until 1921 that the last few hundred wounded soldiers were moved from Bangour and the site was returned again to the Edinburgh Parish Council lunacy department.
During this period, many tens of thousands of postcards will have been sent between patients and their families at home, which might be hundreds of miles away. These might convey cheery reassurance and hope, but sometimes provided less welcome news. A few words hurried written on the back of a card can now offer poignant glimpses into the personal cost of the war.
On the back of a rather drab view of hospital buildings is a note from Lizzie, addressed “Dear M.H.” It was posted on 18th June 1917 to an address in Starcliffe St., Bolton – a road of typical Lancashire terraced houses that still survives. Lizzie wrote - “Harry does not seem at all well, he cannot sleep at all, and his arms are thinner than mine, and not a bit of colour in them. They allow me in the ward any time between breakfast and bedtime, so you may guess I make the most of it. I hope he is on the mend. This is a lovely place.” She notes her address as Farm Cottages, Bangour. Was Lizzie a sweetheart, or perhaps a dutiful sister, who travelled to Scotland and stayed in lodgings to care for the wounded Harry?
Let's hope that Harry was not among those housed in a marquee with a simple wooden floor and a single coal fire for heat. He would certainly have been better off in Ward 24, which was adopted by the people of Armadale The ladies of Armadale were particularly active in collecting funds for the ward; staging concerts, taking collections in the cinema, and selling lucky white heather door-to-door. Scones, cakes, bacon, eggs and other “toothsome dainties” were delivered during regular visits.
In 1918, Cooperative employees from Armadale hosted a Halloween party for wounded soldiers in the ward; although doubtless this would seem rather tame compared with the horrors that had been experienced in the trenches.
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Ghost Signs and Sunday Drinkers
There are websites and social media pages devoted to the spotting of ghost signs; hand-painted adverts and notices on the walls of old buildings, whose faded remains survive long after their purpose has past. Blackburn is slowly developing its very own ghost sign as layers of paint flake off the gable wall of the old Turf Inn, slowly revealing mysterious lettering beneath.
Until about a decade ago a large advertising billboard fixed to the wall...
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The Marshy Mysteries of Muirhall
Travelling along the A71 from West Calder towards Briech, just before reaching the Muirhall whisky warehouses, there’s an unremarkable stretch of boggy ground between the road and railway inhabited by a few happy sheep.
At one time the skyline to the north would have been dominated by the mighty Addiewell oil works, and you might imagine that the traces of banks and boundaries that cross the boggy field result from industrial activities. Whil...
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More About Curling
Following the many interesting responses to our recent post about curling ponds, we share some further information, gleaned from old Ordnance Survey maps, about the many sites where curling competitions once took place in West Lothian.
By the start of the Victorian era, most parishes had their own curling club, usually under the patronage of the local laird, who would set aside an secluded area of wood or field for construction of a pond. The earliest r...ecords of local clubs, according to the Royal Caledonian Curling Society are Bathgate (1811), Buchan (Broxburn) 1838, Linlithgow (1820), Torphichen (1831), Uphall (1838), Whitburn & Fauldhouse (1829), Bellsquarry & Livington (1831), Kirknewton (1825), Midcalder (1830), West Calder (1823). Further clubs were formed to serve the new industrial communities.
In addition to ponds used for public matches, many estates had their private ponds, and informal curling competitions often took place on ponds, streams and the canal. Linlithgow loch, Cobbinshaw loch, and the wetlands around Bathgate, were particularly popular with skaters and curlers during the frozen depths of winter.
A new type of “artificial” curling pond began to be built at the end of the 19th century as part of the recreational amenities of towns and villages. Constructed with masonry walls and an asphalt base, they eliminated much of the danger and uncertainly of the old ponds and could be converted for bowling or tennis during the summer months.
The locations illustrated here are very unlikely to be an exhaustive list, and much further research might be done to unravel this fascinating history, and this lost pleasure of winter.
All map images are courtesy of the National library of Scotland
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