Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Meadowhead Farm, Meadowhead House
Country House (19th Century), Farmhouse (Period Unassigned), Hotel (20th Century)
Site Name Meadowhead Farm, Meadowhead House
Classification Country House (19th Century), Farmhouse (Period Unassigned), Hotel (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Addiewell
Canmore ID 275443
Site Number NS96SE 64
NGR NS 98869 61864
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/275443
- Council West Lothian
- Parish West Calder
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District West Lothian
- Former County Midlothian
ADDIEWELL, from 1865
Paraffin Young's largest oil works. Shale oil communities characteristically took the form of long, low, single-storey, brick cottages, placed at random in unlikely rural locations - like Faraday Place, c.1890. Addiewell has no real centre, unless you count its crowstepped farm, 1762. St Thomas RC Church, 1923, by Reginald Fairlie, sitting high and harled on its raised site, has a baroque gable with niche for a statue at the apex. Priest's house with pyramid roof adjoins. The most eye-catching feature of Addiewell is the Five Sisters shale bing, the most predominant surviving symbol of the oil industry. Meadowhead House, 1899, by J G Fairley, is an impressive three-storey baronial tower grafted upon an Improvement farmhouse.
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
