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Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566379
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566379
BATHGATE
Fast up, fast down - or has Bathgate more staying power? Source of the 19th-century Scots oil boom, Bathgate was an ancient market centre of a fertile parish covered with thriving plantations which tend generally to heighten the beauty of the landscape and improve the climate. Formerly an ancient sheriffdom (one of its sheriffs was Sir James Hamilton of Finnart), it was erected a burgh of barony in 1661 with seven annual (mostly cattle) fairs. The royal castle was gifted by Robert Bruce to his daughter Marjory who, after marrying Walter the High Steward, founded the Royal House of Stewart. Earthworks still identifiable in the golf course. The old town lay on the lower slopes of the Bathgate Hills on the edge of the policies of Balbardie House, seat of the Marjoribanks of that Ilk. The old Glasgow Road went up Cochrane Street into Main Street, and left up Shuttle Row to Torphichen, or to Drumcross and Edinburgh up Hopetoun Street. The Old Parish Church, at Kirkton, lay to the south-east.
After 1824, its streets were to be paved and lit by gas, there was to be a weekly market on Wednesdays, and a police system was to be introduced. That market became the central cornmarket for West Lothian and the adjoining counties. By 1843, change was in the air: The town now consists of two parts, the old and the new. The old town is built on a steep ridge, and the streets are narrow and crooked. The new town is built on a regular plan, and has a good appearance. Within these few years, the town has been considerably extended: there has also been a large increase of population, which is principally supported by the weaving of cotton goods for the Glasgow manufacturers, and by the lime and coalworks in the vicinity. The character of the burgh changed from being very rustic to fashionable; new streets - Mid Street, Marjoribanks Street, Engine Street - flourished; as did the principal cross axis of North Bridge Street and Hopetoun Street.
In the mid-19th century, the economic focus shifted decisively southwards to Hopetoun Street and George Street. The relocation of the ancient kirk from Kirkton to Main Street in 1739, and its replacement by the present High Kirk, facing Jarvey Street in 1882, did not stop the trend. Industrial Bathgate moved inexorably southwards becoming more posh as it spread: the Steelyard (named after the steelyard or public weighing machine) became George Place, and Engine Street became George Street. That is now the pedestrianised centre of the town, and liberally punctuated with brick planters and trees. 1992 environmental art in Steelyard Square based on local themes by Sibylle von Halen, Lynn Clarke & Robert Hutcheson (Peter McGowan Associates, Landscape Architects).
Taken from "West Lothian: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Stuart Eydmann, Richard Jaques and Charles McKean, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
