IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Uphall, BROXBURN, EH52 5NT

Looking downstream, shortly after it emerges from a pipe underneath the road leading to Uphall Industrial Park. The pipe is there as the burn runs underneath Stankards Bing, a large, now tree-planted spoil heap resulting from production at Uphall Oil Works, which used to sit on the same spot as the industrial estate. I have given up trying to figure out what Beugh means. There are lots of theories, ie guesses, online, but I do think that trying to find out what a one syllable place-name once meant, especially if it only has one proper consonant, is a near impossible task.

Uphall railway station and the M8 motorway can be seen at the bottom of the photo.

The path is from Roman Camp to the station. The building is separated from the path by the Edinburgh-Glasgow railway and the M8 motorway.

This what happens when you go for a walk with no map and just a vague plan! I didn't bargain for Uphall Industrial Park, with its spiked metal fence, to be sitting so close to the motorway. So in order not to get any police attention for walking along the hard shoulder I had to find a way through trees and brambles in a 20 foot wide long stretch between this wooden fence and the metal one. Uphall Industrial Park occupies the site of the former Uphall Oil Works, and this awkward, perhaps never walked before route eventually finishes at the footpath that goes underneath the motorway near Uphall Station train station.

The M8 motorway and the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Bathgate railway line are at the bottom of the photo, as is a yard full of portable buildings. Uphall is in the top half of the photo.

Cycle path approaching an underpass beneath the M8 by Uphall Station.

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.

Path leading under the Edinburgh to Glasgow via Bathgate railway at the eastern end of Uphall Station. The path forms part of the Shale Trail.

A cycle/footpath crossing a landscaped spoil heap between Uphall and Uphall Station.

These paths have led from the eastern underpass at Uphall railway station, West Lothian. The left leads up to the eastbound platform, and the right is a shared cycle path to Uphall and Broxburn. This is point 13 on the Shale Trail. Information here is at https://shaletrail.co.uk/shale-stories/millipede-big-my-sister/