A Very Muddy Path through Old Strip Wood

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 16 Mar 2021

I imagine this path only dries out during a major heatwave. The narrow strip of woodland appears on the earliest OS map of the 1850s. It isn't that most of the woods round here have been felled since, just that there were very few to begin with, and most of these few remain. The larger area of trees that neighbours this one where the path leaves the park is certainly not much older than Livingston newtown itself. If you take this path heading from Bankton Mains Park recreation park you emerge on a fairly wide tarmacked footpath. This pretty much follows a section of what was once a fairly major road - part of a route from Mid Calder to Carnwath. If you follow the tarmacked path to the left and cross over the main road it eventually leads to Bankton Lane, a short dead-end section of the original road that still remains.

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