Everything about Bathgate totally explained
Bathgate is a town in
West Lothian,
Scotland, on the
M8 motorway five
miles west of
Livingston. Neighbouring towns are
Blackburn,
Armadale,
Fauldhouse,
Whitburn, Livingston,
Stoneyburn, and
Linlithgow.
Edinburgh Airport is 13 miles (21 km) away. Situated 2 miles (3km) south of the
Neolithic burial site at
Cairnpapple Hill, Bathgate and the surrounding area show signs of habitation since about 3500 BC.
History
Medieval Bathgate (circa 1100 – 1500)
Bathgate first enters the chronicles of historys in a confirmation charter by King
Malcolm IV of Scotland (
1141 –
9 December 1165). In royal charters of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, the name of Bathgate has appeared as: Bathchet (
1160), Bathket (
1250) and Bathgetum (
1316). Batket in the 14th century, and by the 15th appeared as both Bathgat and Bathcat. The name is a “manifest corruption” of the original
Cumbric derivation meaning Boar Wood (
baedd coed).
In
1315, The daughter of King Robert I of Scotland (
Robert The Bruce),
Marjorie (alternatively spelt Margery) Bruce, married
Walter Stewart (or Steward) (
1293–
1326), the 6th Lord High Steward of Scotland. The dowry to her husband included the lands and castle of Bathgate. Walter died at the castle on the
9 April 1326.
In the
1846 book
A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland,
Samuel Lewis writes:
Statistical Account of Scotland Vol I (1793), referring to Walter Stewart states:
Dating from around the same time the remains of Bathgate's former parish church still stand at Kirkton. The original 12th Century construction was absorbed by a later build in
1739 when a new church was erected on the same site. This simple whitewashed edifice served the community until its last service on the
9 April 1882. King Malcolm IV makes reference to the original church in a charter, granting it to the monks of
Holyrood Abbey. Records show that Holyrood Abbey gave the church to the abbot and monks of
Newbattle Abbey in
1327.
Bathgate 17th – 18th Century
In
1606 silver ore was chanced upon at nearby Hilderston, in the shadow of Cairnpapple Hill, by a prospecting
collier: Sandy Maund. This accidental discovery began a short-lived crown “project” in the area. Advisors to
King James VI of Scotland became aware how rich in silver the mine may be and in April
1608 repossessed the land for the crown. By December of 1608 it was clear that the ore in the mine was of varying quality and by March
1613 all efforts to extract silver from the area were abandoned.
Bathgate remained a very small rural community until the middle of the 19th century with only a foray by
Covenanters in the 17th century to unrest the populace. Frances Groome, in the
Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4) writes:
Robert Louis Stevenson, in the book
Lay Morals, Part 2: The Pentland Rising. A Page of History further elucidates upon this night in November
1666:
His depiction goes on to describe how the half the army perished in the freezing weather as they headed towards the
Pentland Hills.
Bathgate 19th Century
Established around
1800, the Glenmavis Distillery in Bathgate was purchased in
1831 by one John McNab, who produced the eponymous
MacNab's Celebrated Glenmavis Dew from the site until the distillery's closure in
1910. In
1885, the distillery was producing 80,000 gallons of single malt a year which was transported to Scotland, England and the colonies.
By the opening of
Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway in
1849, local mines and quarries were extracting
coal,
lime, and
ironstone.
James Young’s discovery of
cannel coal in the Boghead area of Bathgate, and the subsequent opening of the Bathgate Chemical Works in
1852, the world's first commercial oil-works, manufacturing
paraffin oil and paraffin wax, signalled an end to the rural community of previous centuries. When the cannel coal resources dwindled around
1866, Young started distilling paraffin from much more readily available
shale. To this date, the landscape of the Lothians is dotted with the orange spoil heaps (called Bings) from this era. Collieries and quarries and the associated “traditional” industries (brickworks, steelworks) were the main employers in Bathgate as the 19th century drew to a close.
Bathgate 20th Century
In the mid-20th century, many local industries were closed and West Lothian was designated a 'Special Development Area'. In such areas, extra financial inducements were offered by the British Government to assist companies wishing to relocate. As a result, in
1961, the
BMC — which consisted of the merged
Austin Motor Company in
Longbridge and
Birmingham and
Morris Motors in
Oxford — located a new
Truck & Tractor plant in Bathgate rather than expanding Longbridge as originally planned. The plant closed in
1986, regarded by some as an illustration of the failure of the Special Development Areas policy.
On
24 March 1986, the
Bathgate-Edinburgh railway line was re-opened to passengers for the first time since the 1950s. This railway line is to be extended to
Airdrie allowing train services to run between
Glasgow Queen Street and
Edinburgh Waverley via
Bathgate railway station by December 2010.
The world's oldest known reptile fossil,
Westlothiana lizziae (affectionately referred to as
Lizzie), was discovered in East Kirkton Quarry, Bathgate in
1987; it's now in the
Museum of Scotland.
Early in
1992, the US company
Motorola opened a mobile phone manufacturing (Personal Communications Sector or PCS) plant at Easter Inch in Bathgate (now the Pyramids Business Park). In
2001, the global market for mobile phones dropped sharply and as a consequence, despite pressure from the highest levels of UK government, on the
24 April 2001 Motorola announced the closure of the plant and the loss of 3,106 jobs. The 93 acre site is now occupied by Disaster Recovery Services Ltd,
HMRC,
Morrisons and
Quintiles.
Bathgate's war memorial was moved by a
BBC television programme from a hill near Kirk Road to a landscaped garden in Mid Street on the
25 July 1995 (Broadcast
10 September 1995).
Notable Bathgate residents have included
David Tennant (born in Bathgate but raised in Paisley), his father
Alexander McDonald, former moderator of The Church of Scotland, Sir
James Young Simpson, the discoveror of the anesthetic properties of chloroform, and
John Newland, one of the town's major benefactors. Newland emigrated to the West Indies. There he became a rich planter, using slaves to maintain and harvest his sugar-cane crop. His benefaction allowed the establishment of Bathgate Academy, which was founded in
1833. He is remembered today by an annual pageant (known as the Procession, Gala Day or Newland's day), held on the first Saturday in June.
The local secondary school is Bathgate Academy. The Bathgate primary schools are Balbardie, St Mary's, Boghall, St Columba's, and Windyknowe. A new primary school, Simpson Primary, opened on the site of the British Leyland Factory in August
2007. It serves the new area of town called Wester Inch. The school is named after James Young Simpson.
Demographics
| Year |
1861 |
1871 |
1881 |
1891 |
1901 |
1911 |
1921 |
1941 |
1951 |
1961 |
1971 |
1981 |
1991 |
2001 |
| Population | 4,827 |
4,991 |
6,425 |
5,786 |
7,549 |
8,226 |
8,504 |
10,127 |
11,291 |
not available |
not available |
not available |
13,819 |
15,068
|
Sources:Online Historical Population Reports , A Vision Of Britain Through Time and General Register Office for Scotland |
Note that the town is experiencing rapid growth, with nearly 3000 new homes built since these statistics were produced, adding 6000 to 8000 more people.
WL Business Development website
Sport
Football
Bathgate is home to the
junior football club
Bathgate Thistle.
Culture
Land art
Part of the M8 Art Project saw the artist Patricia Leighton's 'sawtooth ramp'project being built in
1993. The sculpture is 1000 feet long and consists of seven 36 foot high ramps. The artist based the design on local geographic features: (
drumlins) and the shape of the surrounding bings. The pyramidic shape of the sculpture gave rise to the name of the nearby Pyramids Business park. In April 2007, a local farmer painted the sheep which graze on the pyramids bright red with a harmless sheep spray.
In 1998 the artist Lumir Soukup built the earth sculpture 'The Bathgate Face' at Wester Inch. By taking facial measurements of more than 1200 Bathgate residents, the artist was able to create an 'average profile' which was the basis for the sculpture.
Development in the area in 2004 threatened to demolish the sculpture; however the artist managed to persuade developers to build around his work.
Famous people
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bathgate'.
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