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West Calder

Parishes formerly in MidlothianUse British English from May 2014Villages in West Lothian
West Calder Union Square
West Calder Union Square

West Calder (Scots: Wast Cauder, Scottish Gaelic: Caladar an Iar) is a village in the council area of West Lothian, Scotland, located four miles west of Livingston. Historically it is within the County of Midlothian. The village was an important centre in the oil shale industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. West Calder has its own railway station. The surrounding villages that take West Calder's name in their address - Polbeth, Addiewell, Loganlea, Harburn and Westwood - outline the area that this village encompasses, and they all have played an important part in the history of the village as well as West Lothian. The village is a 10-minute drive from Livingston, which is host to two large shopping centres. The village lies along the ridge above the Calder burn.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article West Calder (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 55.85199 ° E -3.56854 °
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Address

West Calder War Memorial

East End
EH55 8AB
Scotland, United Kingdom
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West Calder Union Square
West Calder Union Square
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Nearby Places

Seafield, West Lothian
Seafield, West Lothian

Seafield is a small village in West Lothian, Scotland. Seafield lies 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) east of Blackburn, 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of Bathgate (grid reference NT007660) and 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Livingston. The village lies between the River Almond to the south and the M8 motorway to the north. Seafield has many good community amenities such as a primary school, community centre, shop, hotel, bowling club and annual Gala day. It is also home to Cola P, creator of the Gobble. The band is currently defunct.Situated just outside Seafield is Blackburn House. This is an A-listed building built in 1772 by George Moncrieff.Seafield grew principally to provide housing for coal and oil-shale mine workers, with three poorer-quality rows north of the road demolished but two later, well-built terraces of miners' rows on the south side now restored in the centre of the village. The oil-shale works north of the village were cleared by the 1960s, leaving a large oil-shale bing (tip). The County Council then used the works site and the adjacent peat moss as its main domestic refuse tip until the 1980s. This generated serious water pollution problems, aggravated by outflow being east towards the New Town of Livingston. One of the last large-scale Scottish Enterprise-led land reclamation schemes, in the 1990s, utilised the spent shale (which is inert, having been retorted at high temperature) to blind over the tip, with full pollution control measures. Seafield Bing itself was remodelled to a design brief by West Lothian Planners, to resemble the natural basalt sills and lava flow landscapes of the Bathgate Hills and Fife, with a serrated crestline, and a proper summit now estimated at 198m asl in height, and renamed with approval of the Community Council "Seafield Law", appearing thus on latest Ordnance Survey maps. The wooded setting is a popular local recreational area.

Castle Greg
Castle Greg

Castle Greg is the archaeological remains of a Roman fortlet in Harburn on the Camilty Plantation, approximately three miles south-east of West Calder, West Lothian, in Scotland.The site is less than an acre in size, and lies just off the B7008. It is one of the best preserved Roman earthworks in the country and was first excavated in the 19th century by Sir Daniel Wilson, the interior excavation having taken place in 1852. The remains take the form of two defensive ditches protecting a clearly visible rectangular rampart. Originally, these ditches would have been at least fifteen feet in depth. The rampart behind the ditches still stands up to five feet high in places, though obviously, this would have been far higher when the fortlet was in use. On the rampart stood a wooden palisade, at least ten feet high, with a walkway running the length of the fortlet. There is an entrance through the rampart at the eastern end, over which would have stood a wooden tower attached to the walkway. Very little remains of the flat interior of the fortlet, although it is known that within there would have been two rows of barracks, between which there was a well. There would also have been a stable block. During the 1852 excavation of the interior, pottery was discovered from the well between the two barracks. Castle Greg was a most likely used as a monitoring base for an east–west road running along the foot of the nearby Pentlands, from the Forth to the Clyde Valley. Although the fortlet currently commands no long-distance views, during the 1st century AD, when the fort was in use, the surrounding countryside was not forested, and Castle Greg would have been able to view clearly up to the Fife coastline and the mountains beyond. The name Castle Greg is possibly derived from the Roman name Camulosessa Præsidium, from nearby Camilty, itself derived from Camulos Tref – literally, village of Camulos.

Blackburn House, West Lothian
Blackburn House, West Lothian

Blackburn House is a category A-listed Georgian house, situated between Blackburn and Seafield near Bathgate in West Lothian, Scotland. The house comprises a compact central Palladian mansion house, with substantial east and west pavilions. The house was built by George Moncrieff in 1772. Moncrieff also founded the small town of Blackburn, for which the House still provides a gateway landmark. The rural setting became transformed by coal and oil-shale mining, with miners' rows built in the adjacent villages. Most of the dereliction has since been cleared, although the conspicuous Five Sisters shale spoil tip survives, as a scheduled monument, still dominating the outlook south from the house.The decay of Blackburn House stemmed from it becoming the farmhouse to a small farm, now no longer viable. The owners were unable to maintain the house, which was abandoned in 1972 for a new bungalow. Blackburn House thus fell into a state of serious disrepair, and was included in the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland at its inception in 1990. The house could not be sold for private restoration as it stood amidst the working farm buildings. West Lothian Council's newly-established Lowland Crofting scheme provided a solution, with permission for ten new houses granted on condition the house was released, and a third of the farmland put into woods walks and wildlife for community benefit, reducing the farm itself to a smallholding.Restoration was completed in May 2008. Today, the Blackburn House serves as an office, event, and filming location. Blackburn House won the Georgian Group Award in November 2008 for the Best Restoration of a Georgian Country House in the UK.