IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Harrysmuir Gardens, LIVINGSTON, EH53 0PL

Craigshill Care Facility on Larch Grove can be seen near the bottom of the photo.

I don't think it would cause much argument to describe Craigshill as an unglamorous area of an unglamorous town. However, as with all of Livingston, it is close to a good network of leafy paths, and due to the town sloping down from North to South, has stunning views of the Pentland Hills from certain spots, including an open section on this linear woodland route. There is easy access to the wood via a tarmac path leading from Nasmyth Square, a dead-end road leading to lots of small industrial units with lots of parking space. Presumably the name arises from the woods being on the East side of Livingston, and the main mostly tarmacked path swings round Craigshill's NorthEastern corner, with access from various residential streets and the Mid Calder to Pumpherston road. Like most of Livingston's many small woodlands it is managed by the Woodland Trust, who have enormous exhaustive files available online about all of their sites. The only gripe I have with these reports is that they generally split up these suburban woodlands into 'compartments', with no accompanying map to determine where these compartments are on the ground. This time though it was easy enough to figure them out. This Northern section is mixed, and was originally planted in the mid 1800s. The Southernmost section though, in the neighbouring grid-square, is thought to have been planted during the building of Livingston, which mostly started with Craigshill in the 1960s. I mention this because the Woodland Trust report mentions problems there with various species of conifer having got too tall and therefore blowing over a lot. I wonder if they aren't present in the older section because these tree types weren't readily available at that time, they have already all blown over and/or been felled, or whether it is just a case of humanity becoming increasingly more stupid over time?!

Like many of the woods in Livingston, this is managed by the Woodland Trust.

Modern housing against a winter backdrop. Livingston Pentecostal Church is on the right.

"Constructed to the south of the earlier Pumpherston North Village to house staff of the Pumpherston Oil Works" https://www.scottishshale.co.uk/GazVillages/PumpherstonSVillage.html

The streets in South Village are possibly the only part of Pumpherston that would still be recognised by the shale miners and oils workers who lived here in the heyday of the shale oil industry, but even here many of the cottages have been altered or replaced.

If somebody from a hundred years ago was transported forward in time to today, they would quickly conclude that the only things people aren't willing to use the cars they now all have to drive for are haircuts and takeaways. Pumpherston has never been that heavy on hairdressers, but until recently was something of a phenomenon in takeaway density - a relatively small village, it once boasted seven, including 3 Chinese. I only spotted three or four open tonight; the rest were shuttered. The big building ahead was once the village's main Co-op. This seems to have been more of an early shopping complex than the Co-ops we are familiar with today. It once housed a butchers, a drapers (in the olden days people made a lot of their clothes themselves, or at least paid somebody else to do so for them), a furniture store, a grocers and a general store. The building on the left, now divided between umpteen businesses, was built in the 1920s and was the Co-op bakery. The Co-op, which was part of the West Calder Co-operative Society at the time, arrived here in the 1880s. They took over an existing store and upgraded and expanded it. Within 20 years, however, they demolished it all and built the building shown here, complete with the clock tower which now only tells the right time in the winter. The ScottishShale website has a lot of pictures of it (including a colour postcard), but even they have no idea of the purpose of the bell above the clock. The old shop closed in the early 1980s. I'm not sure when the new Co-op opened, but it occupies a building which was formerly an independent store and can be seen in the distance, opposite the unseen side of the old building.

Oil mining village, predating Livingston New Town. Now on the eastern edge of the new metropolis. A typical Scottish November day.

The streets in South Village are possibly the only part of Pumpherston that would still be recognised by the shale miners and oils workers who lived here in the heyday of the shale oil industry, but even here many of the cottages have been altered or replaced.