Belvedere

This mysterious old road once went the short distance from Edinburgh Road to the other side of the railway line via a bridge, then petered out. The white house ahead sits on the far side of Edinburgh Road and the now demolished bridge is behind camera. It appears on the first OS map of the 1850s, when both sides of the railway were farmland, so presumably it was there to allow the farmer(s) to move livestock across the railway. The current bridge buttresses look more modern though, which in itself isn't that unusual. However, since the road never really appears to have gone anywhere in particular, it seems a little odd that upgrades were made. In the 1890s the road is merely shown as a bridge, joining up with nothing on either side, and in the 1940s - its possible heyday - once South of the railway it turned into a track leading to sand pits.

I didn't count them, but I reckon there are six or seven of these short walls on the Edinburgh Road in Bathgate leading towards the town centre from the Guildiehaugh (or Tesco as it is now more usually called) Roundabout. They all have an identical form, though probably vary in length a bit from section to section - the walls are just over five feet high and are always flanked by posts with ball finials which go a couple of feet higher. Hopefully one day there will be a wall website to clear up these mysteries but at present, sadly, us wall-spotters have nowhere to go! Usually, walls like this mark the boundary of an old estate or something similar, but that seems highly unlikely in this case. The ground behind the wall descends steeply to the railway line. I mention this because of the gaps between the wall sections - not one of the gaps, as is often the case, could possibly have been there to provide access to anywhere. Furthermore, even if the ground was flat, the gaps are so regular that even then there could never have been a need for so many points of access. Each wall section is joined by a slightly concave stretch of metal railings. They could be there because the wall fell down, but then again, if that was the case, would it not have been cheaper just to replace the wall as opposed to erecting fancy posts at each end of the surviving walls? Back then though, sometimes price wasn't a problem - life was tougher, but people expected things to look nicer, if it came from their taxes. In contrast the recent electrification of the railway lines has led to hundreds of ugly identikit concrete bridges everywhere round here, an architectural disaster in my book. The wall is still a mystery though - before the railway came it was mainly farmland round here.

This old lamp has stood here for the last 30 years or so, save for a brief period a couple of years back when it was taken away to get tarted up a bit, and modified so it could once again be hooked up to the electricity. In days gone by it used to move about more regularly. The Provost of Bathgate used to have the honour of having the lamp positioned directly in front of his house, and it moved from place to place over time accordingly. A provost is loosely the equivalent of a mayor in England, though the title seems to have become more ceremonial as time has gone on. Bathgate was a Burgh Council - this meant it had a certain amount of autonomy in running its own affairs - until everything to do with local administration was shook up in Scotland in the mid 1970s. All its powers were then subsumed into West Lothian Council, which itself still has a provost, along with about two-thirds of Scotland's other local council areas. The coat of arms adorning the lamp is fanciful in the extreme. There is no disputing that Bathgate once had a castle, but it is generally thought to have been uninhabited since the early 1300s, and a report of the late 1700s states that there wasn't a stone of it left at the time. Then, as now, it was a small unimpressive mound; it is currently located in the middle of Bathgate Golf Course. The flag in between the two Saltires is supposedly that of a family who lived in the castle several hundreds of years ago. The water seems to arise from artistic license, as the moat was tiny, and there are - and were - only smallish ponds in the area, but these are quite a distance away. The uninspiring and meaningless Latin motto translates as : 'The common good between the walls'. While it is perfectly fine in my book to retain the lamp in its original state, I would hope that, should there ever be a need for coats of arms here in the future, this lazy heraldry gets replaced. Quicksmart!

In between the vast new housing delevopment at Wester Inch and Bathgate Golf Course is quite a bit of wild and fairly scrubby land. A vast network of (mostly interlinking) tracks and paths - hugely confusing to everybody except the local dog-walkers - runs through most of it, particularly at the Western end. Up-to-date maps, of all scales, wrongly show a track running through the length of the golf course. In reality these are often just short walkways between holes; to get from the far end of the course to the clubhouse a good few fairways have to be negotiated. Local foragers should note that there were plenty of blackberries available to enjoy at this spot!

This gate is one of two leading into the Petershill Wildlife Reserve just North of Bathgate. The writing on the top of the gate says: AGGRESSIVE OLD MAN IN(?) BLUE BERGHAUS JACKET & BLONDE LABRADOR BITING PEOPLE AND CHASING WILDLIFE REPORTED TO POLICE 17/04/22 12PM Apart from never having seen anything like this on a metal gate before, two things struck me - (1) The writer used all the space available but never looked like running out of gate, and (2) To own an aggressive labrador you must surely be some kind of psychopath - luckily he was unarmed!

Petershill Wildlife Reserve occupies most of the site of a former limestone quarry. The bit on the left of the very steep road leading North from Bathgate has two gates and is mostly situated where two former reservoirs had been created from the quarry ponds. The bit on the right of the road caught my attention because of the steep drops down from the stone wall that runs alongside the road, and the lack of any obvious water down below. There is a stone wall surrounding this sunken area - broken in a few places, with the usual agricultural makeshift defences in place to avoid the rescuing of livestock. I discovered upon my return that this bit was once part of the quarry too . The stone face pictured isn't actually a part of the perimeter wall as I, disoriented as usual, had initially thought, but is further South. Old maps, at the time of the reservoirs simply denote it as pond (with an area of 0.24 acres). Presumably this was drained at the same time the reservoirs were - in the 1980s. I am always intrigued as to how they manage to drain places that have turned into ponds and lakes, considering that the bodies of water have formed due to the ground having been excavated to the bedrock. Anyway, all that remains of the pond today is a big muddy puddle. And this is actually a part of the Scottish Wildlife Trust managed reserve, they just don't tell anybody.

Although these footsteps look recent it is certain that they are at least three, but perhaps four days old. Snow first fell in this part of Scotland at around 5am on the Saturday before the Wednesday this picture was taken. There were further small flurries throughout Saturday and Sunday and it has since grown increasingly colder, turning the snow into ice. I like to think that these footsteps were made by people starting and finishing their shifts at the nearby Morrisons supermarket during the first snowfall, but obviously have nothing to base this on! This tarmacked path is part of the National Cycle Route 75, and this section links two supermarket car parks - Tesco and Morrisons - and must be about a mile and a half long. The bit pictured is marked as a track on a 1960s OS map; the section immediately South of here, behind camera, roughly follows the route of an old railway spur that used to transport coal from a colliery in Blackburn to a long-gone station, Bathgate Lower.

Depending on which large-scale online map you go to, this part of the oddly named 'Park of Peace' at the NorthWest edge of Bathgate (more research is required here, but I think the name has something to do with the fact that there are some war memorials within the park) is either broadly described as a play area, or specifically described as a 'cycle racing facility'. It is obviously designed with fun in mind as, despite the bumps and berms, it is downhill all the way. However, the starting point and finishing point must only be 50 feet apart. So why not join them up, thereby facilitating (pun intended) proper races over several laps. As every true fan of cycling knows, it is the uphill struggles that are the most exciting. There is a vague grassy route between the two ends but it is obviously not designed to be ridden up. I passed by on the first proper T-Shirt day of spring. Therefore all the targeted users were just drinking and socializing. Good on 'em - I have to admit I felt twinge of jealousy!

This is one of two. There is one behind camera exactly the same size which has '20 P' above it. They were painted in the 1990s to mark the former entrances to air raid shelters that were dug out of the banking behind the wall. There is a plaque nearby which says that it is all connected to 50th anniversary VE Day goings-on, and the writing above the imaginary lintels denotes how many people each air raid shelter could accommodate. The plaque also mentions that Challenge Anneka, a popular TV programme back then, filmed here at the time and that the challenge had something to do with relocating a war memorial. Whether the presenter, Anneka Rice, ever did a piece about the air raid shelters, or was filmed in front of them, is not mentioned. Considering that Bathgate has (and also had during the war) a population of several thousand I should hope that there were a few more dotted about and that these two were highlighted due to their central location, on Bathgate's main road. Thankfully they were never really needed. The plaque states that only one bomb fell on Bathgate in World War Two and didn't explode. For those that know the area it fell on the West side of Whitburn Road, on the ground now occupied by the big surgery just up from Morrisons supermarket.

View northward, just east of Bathgate Upper station, which was then on the ex-NB Edinburgh - Bathgate - Glasgow secondary line. Passenger services had ceased in 1956, so the Depot was then (1962) only servicing freight locomotives and had become mainly a dump for withdrawn engines: this D34, No. 62484 'Glen Lyon', had been condemned in 11/61, nearly a year before the photograph.

View NE, in a dump on the Edinburgh side of Bathgate (Upper) station on the ex-North British subsidiary Edinburgh - Glasgow line. This was one of about 25 withdrawn Scottish Region engines at that site awaiting disposal in September 1962; ex-NB Reid J35 0-6-0 No. 64479. Note the tender-cab, fitted for protection of the crew when running backwards in bad weather. (See also NS9768 : A North British 'Glen' 4-4-0 at Bathgate Locomotive Depot).

View NW, towards Bathgate (Upper), Airdrie and Glasgow; ex-North British Edinburgh - Bathgate - Glasgow line (closed to passengers 1956, reopened throughout in 2010). The locomotive shunting is ex-NB N15 0-6-2T No. 69156, with plenty of traffic in the Yard.

View across the plaza called The Steelyard in Bathgate, with the spire of St David's church on George Street showing above the roofs of the shops on King's Street. Built in 1904, the church is now used for some commercial purpose. See also close-up shot at NS9768 : Belltower of St David's, Bathgate.

Close-up of the belltower of St David's church on George Street in Bathgate, showing above the roofs of the shops on King's Street - supplemental to my photograph at NS9768 : The Steelyard, Bathgate.

Late 19th or very early 20th C cast-iron fountain donated to Bathgate by the wife of Peter Mclagan, MP for Linlithgowshire (who died in 1900). It originally stood at the top end of George Street, at the crossroads with Hopetoun Street, but was moved to the plaza called The Steelyard at the low end of George Street, presumably because its presence at the crossroads interfered with traffic.

Looking northwest across pasture.

An unclassified road leading north from Bathgate towards Cairnpapple Hill, an ancient henge and burial site.