Bo'ness, Forthview And Grahams Crescent Area Of Townscape Character

This site covers the Forthview and Grahams Crescent Area of Townscape Character which was defined as part of the Bo'ness Urban Survey Project 2013. The text below relates to the whole area.

Historical Development and Topography

The Forthview and Grahams Crescent Area of Townscape Character is a split area of two mid-20th century social housing schemes which lie to the south of the line of the Antonine Wall. The Forthview area is also known as Maiden Park. The eastern section, comprising the north side of Hadrian Way, Graham Crescent, Seton Terrace and Grahamsdyke Terrace, dates from the late 1940s and lies to the north of the Drumpark Area of Townscape Character, to the south of Grahamsdyke Road. The larger western section was built in at least two phases and is bounded on the southern edge by Crawfield Avenue and Douglas Drive, and to the north by Jamieson Avenue and Kinneil Drive. The social housing development in Maidenpark Place can be seen on an aerial photograph dating from 1950, with some groundworks underway on Bo’Mains Road, Ochilview Place and Jamieson Avenue also visible as the continuation of the area’s development. Further expansion continued during the 1950s with the larger development of semi-detached social housing in Forthview Crescent, Crawfield Avenue, Kinneil Drive and Bo’Mains Road. A mixture of semi-detached and terraced housing from the same period continues along Jamieson Avenue, Douglas Drive/Road/Place and Terrace, Ochilview Terrace and Road, and Borrowstoun Place and Crescent.

There is one block of flats at 14–18 Grahamsdyke Terrace which dates from a later period, probably the late 1960s/early 1970s, which is the only infilling within the two split areas. There has been no further development or expansion of the area apart from alterations and extensions to existing properties.

Present Character

Both sections of this Area of Townscape Character are distinguished by curving streets in a Garden City style layout. Dating from the 1940s and 1950s, the character is of rendered brick-built semi-detached and terraced housing, typical examples of the time and style of social housing being built in towns and cities across Scotland during the post-WWII period. Plot sizes and garden sizes are relatively modest, and provide the area with a fairly green environment despite the apparently high density development.

The housing style itself is fairly plain throughout the area, with few architectural features of note. However, this in itself makes for a distinctive character for the area. All have pitched or hipped red-tiled roofs, some with large gables to the front elevation. Those accessed via side entrances have flat-roofed porches with ogee-roofed stairwells directly behind. Those with front entrances have shallow flat projecting concrete canopies above the doorway, and some have half-canted flat-roofed bay windows in the outer bays. All these features add to a ‘countrified’ style of the development akin to a Garden City layout.

Information from RCAHMS (LK), 7th January 2014