Local History

Index Page

e-mail Rosie

updated 3 July 2008

• This page is only as reliable as the information it receives. 

• This page has grown so much recently that it has been divided into separate pages linked from this Local History index page.  As a result of much needed re-construction, the pages will be untidy for a while.

• If you have information about Armadale's history that would interest other readers, please contact me.

MAYFIELD RESEARCH PROJECT

We are currently researching families who resided in the Mayfield Area over the last few decades, their experiences of living in the area, sense of community, standards of housing etc.

If you stayed in the Mayfield area and are willing to share your experiences with those undertaking the research, which should be sometime during the summer period, we would be grateful if you could contact either:

Anne Coia - Armadale Community Education Centre, North Street, Armadale EH48 2LG Tel. No. 01501 678512 - email address anne.coia@westlothian.gov.uk

or

Catherine Duffin -Bathgate Community Education Centre, Marjoribanks Street, Bathgate EH48 1AH Tel. No. 01506 775154 - email catherine.duffin@westlothian.gov.uk
 

On this Local History Index Page:

Chief Commissioners and Provosts of Armadale

Quotations about Armadale and Area

Useful History-related Pages on this Website

Arrivals and Departures (Official Visitors to Armadale and Emigrants)

Other relevant History Links

Armadale History-related Pages linked from this Local History index page:

Population and Development (includes places of interest around Armadale)

Employment and Industries

Police and Crime

Transport and Communications except Railways

Railway Lines in the Armadale Area

Hospitals and Medical Personnel

Shops and Public Houses (and other businesses)

Schools

Religious Groups and Buildings

Friendly Societies and Freemasons

Sports and Leisure

Armed Forces and World Wars

For publications about Armadale / West Lothian, see:

• this website's Publications page;

• the History of Armadale Association page;  (Why not look at the new index to their latest publication Picturing The Past, vol 5, A photographic look at old Armadale?)

• and, especially, the story of Armadale's early days in Armadale Past & Present

"Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,

Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall

And leave no memory of what it was!"

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act V, sc iv
 

This site's history pages are dedicated to Betty Hunter, Armadale's jewel, a librarian whose support of, dedication to, and enthusiasm for Armadale are a constant inspiration! 

Special thanks must go to Robert Kerr for his painstaking research, which has inspired and encouraged us to discover more about Armadale's history.

Gratitude must also be expressed to all the unsung individuals who have pursued and collected information about Armadale's past, as well as those who lived it.  Their research and reminiscences have made invaluable contributions to the present understanding of Armadale's history.

PLEASE NOTE: Links from this website to thumbnail images, followed by  * , indicate images that are held by SCRAN

produced by The History of Armadale Association, 2006

INDEX4

"Frae Boghead Burn tae Boarbaughlee,

Ane cat could loup frae tree to tree"

Attributed to Thomas the Rhymer, Thirteenth Century

"There is only one place deserving the name of a village, viz. Armadale, two miles west from the town of Bathgate."

New Statistical Account of Scotland - Linlithgow, 1845

"ARMADALE, a village, in the parish of Bathgate, county of Linlithgow, 2 miles (W.) from Bathgate; containing 121 inhabitants. .... the population is employed in agriculture, and in the mines and quarries of the neighbourhood."   A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1846), Samuel Lewis

"During the course of the century of Armadale's existence, the face of the district has entirely changed from that of sylvan beauty to a thoroughly industrial centre, employing many hands in various walks of life."

Armadale: Past and Present by R. Hynd-Brown, 1906

"Behind the Pentland Hills, an unseen sun sends shafts into a sky opaque and cold.  The full moon is a wafer of ice that will soon dissolve...An incandescent glow begins burning on the distant Pentland Hills.  A split second ago for the sun, but a hundred years  ago, a new coach road was made between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and where the new road crossed the one going north and south, the village began..."

from story published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 1945: Bright and Cheerful is the Day by Tom Hanlin , Armadale-born writer.

"Armadale, from the building of the first house in the year 1795 up to the year 1850, had grown very slowly.  At the latter date it was a hamlet of a mere handful of straw thatched or red-tiled dwellings around the toll-bar, with Thomas Rankin's provision shop near the Cross as the central attraction and place of business."

Armadale: Past and Present by R. Hynd-Brown, 1906

"Armadale (as I remember it in the 1920s) was a small mining community with four main streets, Upper and Lower Bathville, and Station Road, served by a local bus owner Jimmie Aitken, who plied back and forth to pick up passengers from the railway station.  Being a small community we knew almost everyone.  There were three Protestant churches and a Roman Catholic church.  Likewise two schools which produced many a fine scholar, who brought fame and distinction to the Burgh."

Jenny Brown, born 1916, Rural magazine, June 1978

In the 1960s, Dorothy Slater observed:

"Armadale is a cross-roads town; its commercial core is at the cross-roads, with residential  areas to the south and north-west.  Its industrial belt is qujte separate, in the region of Bathville, which is higher than the town itself, and which, for some time, was quite distinct from Armadale.  Now, with the expansion of the town, it is within the Burgh boundary, but is still regarded as a separate district."

The Third Statistical Account of Scotland Volume XXI, The County of West Lothian, ed by Patrick Cadell, 1992

"Situated on the A89 west of Bathgate on the south ridge of the Barbauchlaw Glen, it was until the 1974 reorganisation of local government, one of the four towns in West Lothian with its own Council.  The population level of around 10,000 is fairly stable with development and upgrading taking place constantly.  In 1851 the population was 141 increasing to 3191 in 1891 and over 4,000 in 1906. 

On his elevation to the legal peerage in 1790, Sir Honeyman, Laird of Barbauchlaw took the title of Lord Armadale (from a village of that name [which] was on his estate in Sutherland), so finding a name for the new settlement was fairly easy.

Perhaps not so important historically as the northern half of West Lothian, Armadale does possess its own charms."

"Armadale became a police burgh in the 1860's because of a water crisis, but as late as 1886 there were still open sewers in the street, a water barrel at every house, pigs in the backyards, numerous slaughterhouses and the lack of pavements.

Two world wars and the rapid industrial change have left their marks on Armadale, brief spells of prosperity could not halt the inevitable.  Coal is no longer King, steel foundering and smelting demand less and the community looks to new industries for help, but despite these changes the population has remained steady and continued to grow." R.D. Dingwall, Vice-chairman, Armadale Community Council.

Extract introducing Armadale, Armadale Town Guide 1989.

"The place name Armadale first appeared on maps of West Lothian in 1790, when the lands on which the town stands were purchased by Scottish Law Lord, Sir William Honeyman.....to which he could retreat at weekends from his busy law practice in Edinburgh.

The distinctly rural nature of Armadale at this time is recalled by the name Barbauchlaw....a corruption of Boar Baughlee...a reminder that the Scottish kings, riding out from their royal palace at Linlithgow, used to enjoy hunting the wild pigs...... [Armadale] was still situated in peaceful, undisturbed farming country, of which the town's nickname of The Dale is still a reminder."

Extract from Armadale in old picture postcards by William F. Hendrie

"With the upturn in fortunes of the [football] club on the field; the huge success of the local boys' club in recent years creating players of the future; and a major expansion of the town underway with the symbolic and practical effects of the return of the railway service, the future for Armadale and its favourite sport look bright."

Extract from Our Town, Our Team ARMADALE......!

"A hamlet that mushroomed with the beginning of the mineral exploitation of West Lothian in the mid C19.  Precious little to notice.  Near the central crossing the Kerr Memorial Lamp Post of 1919 and the Mallace Memorial Clock Tower of 1924, with arcaded base attached to the street front and a curious louvred belfry.  The only other buildings that do anything for the place are Ochilview Square, a red brick and harling, c1970, and the Community Centre, red brick and copper, which is by William Nimmo and Partners, 1971."

Extract from The Buildings of Scotland, Lothian except Edinburgh, by Colin McWilliam

In Search of 'The Place'

On a visit to the area in which 'The Place' (Barbauchlaw Manor House) was originally situated, accompanied by the knowledgeable Davie Kerr, we met Jim Black who told us about a pewter Draughts Club cup inscribed to 'William Hunter, Champion of Armadale'.  Does anyone know anything about the Draughts Club?  Where and when did members play?

e-mail Rosie

Why not take time to explore?  You may be surprised by what you find!

 Around Armadale

Armadale Environment

(with useful links to other pages containing Armadale images and information)

Armadale Photos By Others

Armadale in Pictures (useful links)

Children Evacuated to Armadale in 1939

National Relief Fund,
Armadale Local Committee Minute Book, 1914 - 1916

Publications by The History of Armadale Association

Armadale Gala Days

School Memorabilia

Armadale Bands and Performers

The History of Armadale Concert Ensemble

History of Golf in Armadale

Armadale Thistle Statistics

Archaeology Index

Local Archaeology: Location of Ogilface Castle

Woodend

Armadale-Related Publications

1955: Queen Elizabeth II visits Armadale and is welcomed by the Provost, Will Ferrier

George BOYD, an engineer of South Street, near Gladstone terrace, was a bass singer who always performed on stage dressed in tails.  He emigrated to New Zealand.

Samuel DOUGAN and his new wife Eliza Jane nee DRAKE, emigrated from Scotland to Alberta, Canada in the spring of  1906 with his family, William, William and Sarah Jane:

David SHARP emigrated to America a few weeks after Armadale's Gala Day in 1925.  Nothing more was heard from him.

David RUSSELL played cornet in many local orchestras as well as an accompanist for silent films and stage shows in the pavilion and Star Theatres.  He emigrated to America.

William PEDEN aka 'Wull', one of a renowned family of fiddlers. He accompanied silent films  as well as local singers at the Goth on a Saturday night.  He emigrated to America.

• Links to thumbnail images, followed by  * , mark images that are held by SCRAN

• The Family History page also contains links that are useful to the local historian.

• If you decide to visit any of the places described below, you are advised to check for up-to-date information before travelling.  Some venues are subject to seasonal closure.

Update May 2008: Latest books about Armadale and area

Armadale in Minutes by Robert Kerr, produced by The History of Armadale Association, price £5 (+ postage and packing for those outside Armadale). A dust-jacketed hardback of 219 pages with 56 photos/illustrations and 3 maps.  It can be purchased locally or ordered from Betty Hunter, Secretary of The History of Armadale Association:   HAAsecretaryarmadale.org.uk  .  Why not visit the HAA page to read about their activities?

Some of the surnames included in the book's text:

Addie, Aitken, Anderson, Archer, Arthur, Baillie, Baird, Ballantyne, Bamburgh, Barnard, Baxter, Bell, Beveridge, Binning, Bishop, Black, Borza, Boyd, Brock, Brown, Bryce, Bryden, Byers, Caesar, Cairns, Calder, Calderhead, Cameron, Campbell, Carr, Chalmers, Cherry, Clark, Clarkson, Cochran, Cochrane, Collie, Conner, Corsie, Cowan, Craig, Crawford, Cunningham, Currie, Cuthbart, Dalling, Daves, Davidson, Davie, Davis, Dennistoun, Donald, Donaldson, Donnelly, Douglas, Druce, Drummond, Drysdale, Duncan, Easton, Edwards, Elder, Farquhar, Ferrier, Finlay, Finnlay, Fleming, Forrester, Forsyth, Frew, Gall, Gardner, Gartshore, Geddes, Gentleman, Gibb, Gibson, Gilchrist, Gillespie, Gillon, Gilmar, Gordon, Gorman, Gowans, Graham, Gray, Gregor, Greig, Grey, Hailstones, Hall, Hamilton, Harrower, Harvie, Hickman, Honeyman, Hope, Howatt, Hunter, Hynd-Brown, Inglis, Kelly, Kerr, Kirk, Lawson, Learmonth, Lees, Leggat, Leishman, Liddell, Longmuir, Love, MacAdam, MacDonald, MacDougal, Mackay, MacLachlan, MacLellan, Mallace, Marcella, Marr, Marshall, Matheson, Maxwell, McDonald, McDougal, McDowall, McGarrie, McGowan, McGregor, McHardy, McIntosh, McKinnon, McLachlan, McMillan, McNab, McNair, McNicol, McPhail, Millar, Miller, Milne, Moffat, More, Morrison, Muir, Newton, O'Donnell, Parker, Paterson, Pollock, Prentice, Quin, Ramsay, Ranken, Rankin, Readman, Reid, Rennie, Roberts, Robertson, Rodger, Rodgers, Rosebery, Russell, Sharp, Shaw, Shearer, Sibbald, Sim, Simpson, Sinclair, Smith, Snedden, Sneddon,  Steel, Stevenson, Stewart, Swan, Syson, Teape, Temple, Tennant, Thomson, Turner, Walker, Wark, Watson, Waugh, Wetherspoune, White, Williams, Wilson, Wood, Wylie, Wyper, Young.

.....................................

Also recommended:

Old Armadale and Blackridge by John Hood, price £7.99, see Stenlake .   It’s a paperback of 52 pages, but it has 55 photos of Armadale and Blackridge on its covers and inner pages. 

• West Lothian histories of towns, villages, industries, sports, wildlife etc; biographies of West Lothian people; books by West Lothian authors.

• More than 1,100 maps from the 1600s - today covering West Lothian

• 11,000 photographs and slides; hundreds of videos and DVDs, all of local topics

• Valuation Rolls 1855 onwards; Voters' Rolls 1869 onwards; Local Authority records

• Local Newspapers, including West Lothian Courier, whose index can be searched.  Just click on Libraries

• Local history books and booklets for sale

• Family history information

Library HQ, Connolly House, Hopefield Road, Blackburn, West Lothian, EH47 7HZ    Phone 01506 776331 or email sybil.cavanaghwestlothian.gov.uk

Opening hours (no appointment needed): Monday - Thursday 9.00am - 5.00pm; Friday 9.00am - 4.00pm; First Saturday of month 9.30am - 1.00pm

Local History Library

Libraries: local history and heritage: useful links to online tools

West  Lothian Family History Society holds a workshop each month at Library HQ. For more information about the Society and its workshops, e-mail: honsecwlfhs.org.uk or contact Sybil Cavanagh, (details above)

Family History and Genealogy - general information :

Births - historical searches ; Marriages - historical searches ; Deaths (and Burials post 1855) - historical searches

Researchers may be interested in the Newsletter of West Lothian Heritage Services:  Publications include articles on

• West Lothian History and Amenity Society's discovery of Christina Kay's grave ( the inspiration for Muriel Spark's character Miss Jean Brodie)
• Buried Treasure: The Bathgate burial grounds records 
• Levi's Uncut!
• West Lothian and Slavery
• East Carribber Limekilns
• Simply Samplers
• Lochcote near Torphichen
• Keep the Home Fires Burning
• Putting West Lothian on the map
• The Armadale Nurse and the War Poet (Annie Drummond and Ivor Gurney)
• Lost Mansions of West Lothian
• The Bloody Muscovite's Descendants
• Preserving School Archives

Armadale Library, West Main Street, Armadale, EH48 3JB  01501 678400

Below a photo from a past exhibition entitled: Levi's uncut, which told the story of Levi's factory in Whitburn.

Below: An exhibition about Armadale's novelist, Tom Hanlin,  at Armadale Library, April - May 2008.

Blackridge Community Museum, Blackridge Library, Craiginn Centre, Blackridge, EH48 3RJ
Winter Opening Times: Tuesday & Thursday: 2.00pm - 6.30pm, Wednesday: 9.30am -12.30pm & 1.30pm - 4.30pm  Contact: 01501 752396 

Visits at other times: contact Museums Development Officer: 01506 776347

Blackridge Community Museum houses, for half a year, a nineteenth century coaching display as well as the village's history.  Open all year.  Touring exhibitions other times.

 

26 February - until late May: Exhibition of Banners and Benefits, the colourful history of West Lothian friendly societies
The Exhibition was based on the research of Elizabeth Henderson.  Visitors learned how early friendly societies, based on local trades, experienced difficulties when their membership grew older and made increasing demands on society funds.  From 1793, the self-help organisations grew and flourished, attaining their greatest popularity by the end of the 1800s. As a result of small weekly sums paid by members, the societies, which were also owned and run by members, paid sickness benefit to needy members and also pensions to widows.	In 1914, National Insurance changed to central administration and  society membership declined.  Realising that the NHS would be incapable of total provision, Sir William Beveridge, architect of the Welfare State, tried in vain to encourage members to stay with their societies, but, by the mid-1960s, West Lothian's local friendly societies had disappeared.  Photo above: Armadale banner discovered in 2001. Photo below - centre: Armadale Thistle Lodge banner.
Photos of exhibits from Blackridge Community Museum Exhibition: The History of Blackridge, 2007-8
Everyday items of Blackridge life	More elements of Blackridge life: the environment, Craig Inn, stagecoach and rail travel, and Gala Day

Bennie Museum (Features: Dr Simpson, inventor of chloroform, and James 'Paraffin' Young; early photographs; Victoriana)  9 - 11 Mansefield Street, Bathgate, EH48 4HU

01506 634944  April - Sept: Mon - Sat, 10.00am - 4.00pm  Oct - March: 11.00am - 3.30pm

Whitburn Community Museum for permanent display about history of town and area coal mining. Open all year.  Touring exhibitions also.

Whitburn Library, West Main Street, EH47 0AR 

Winter Opening Times: Monday - Friday : 10.00am - 5.30pm,  Saturday: 9.30am - 1.00pm.

 01501 678050

Broxburn Library, West Main Street, EH52 5RH 

Winter Opening Times: Monday - Friday : 10.00am - 6.00pm,  Saturday: 9.30am - 1.00pm.

01506 775600

National Archives of Scotland

Library HQ, Connolly House, Hopefield Road, Blackburn

01506 776321

9 Dunlop Square, Deans Ind Estate, Livingston, EH54 8SB

01506 773770

archives.lib@wled.org.uk

The River Avon Heritage Trail     (see Ordnance Survey Map 349)

More info: 01501 823919 or visit

The Central Forest Trust website

(Westfield Viaduct, which carried coal from local mines; Wallace's Cave; Torphichen Mill and cottage, birthplace of Henry Bell, pioneer of steam navigation; Carribber Bridge, world's first stress-laminated wooden bridge; the Muiravonside Country Park, 170 acres formerly owned by the Stirlings of Falkirk; the second longest British aqueduct; the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal)

West Lothian History and Amenity Society 

Details from the Society Chairman, Elizabeth Henderson: 01506 411105

Meetings: Regal Theatre, Bathgate,

First Tuesday each month,

6 February - 5 June,

7.30pm - 9.30pm

Annual Membership Fee

01506 652174

Dictionary of Scotland (1846)

Armadale description

Description of Torphichen

Includes Bridgecastle, Ogilface Woodend, Blackridge, Westfield Wallhouse

Torphichen Preceptory

(shown left)

The Preceptory is linked with the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.

Open April - September weekends.

See this site for Gazetteer entries for:

Armadale

Balbardie mansion and estate

Barbauchlaw

Bathgate

Bathville Row

Boghead mansion and estate

Cappers hamlet

Linlithgow Palace    birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots

situated in a beautiful lochside position, open all year

Linlithgowshire (West Lothian)

(from Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland 1882-4)

Open April - October

Dalyell family seat for 350 years gives stunning view of the Forth and is open daily (except Fridays) May - September

Pier now open where visitors can moor their boats!

01506 834807
April - September
9.30am - 18.00pm
October - March
9.30am - 16.30pm
(closed Thursdays and Fridays)
 

Marquesses of Linlithgow family seat, built over 300 years ago. (Original furniture, paintings, 150 acres of woodland, views of the Forth and 2 bridges, rooftop viewing platform).

 Open daily April - September

Cairnpapple Hill

Historic Scotland Site Office at Cairnpapple: 01506 634622

(2)

The highest point in West Lothian for wonderful views and an important prehistoric site,

April - September

9.30am - 6.30pm

Refuge Stane, Witchcraig, east of Torphichen, north east of Cairnpapple

Gormyre Stone, east of Torphichen north west of Cairnpapple   

Raven Craig Cairn, between Cairnpapple and Bathgate

Galabraes, south of Cairnpapple on road to Bathgate 

Kinneil (for details of the Antonine Wall)

The Boar Stane between Armadale and Blackridge

Witches Stane between Torphichen and Linlithgow