Concrete Access Hole to Underground Watercourse

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 10 Feb 2021

The upright circular concrete pipe can be seen on the left of the picture. A metal ladder leads down to the water but cannot be climbed down due to the presence of an enormous rectangular concrete block sitting on top of the opening. How this gets moved is anybody's guess, but surely a round metal cover would be more practical?! The manhole doesn't appear on current maps - indeed current maps show this tributary of, or drain into, Beugh Burn as running overground. It is only when zooming into the largest scale on online maps it is shown as disappearing further South. Holmes Oil Works' Green Bing is just East of here, and the maps showing the drain or tributary as overground show it as running on the West edge of where the bing used to be prior to redevelopment of the area. The oil works was one of many in West Lothian that extracted oil from shale, and the bings, or spoil heaps, were viewed as an eyesore in the middle of the 20th century after the industry became no longer viable, and lots of re-landscaping took place. This is probably why the water now runs underground at this point. Shortly after this manhole the water runs into Beugh Burn from a largish pipe.

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