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Gloag Place, WEST CALDER, EH55 8DW

Station platform just visible on left under footbridge

This is one of those great little jumbled-up streets that are often to be found just off the main roads of old towns, though whether West Calder can still lay claim to being a town is debatable. It certainly was a town a generation or two ago, and though it probably actually now has more houses than it did back then, the ever-reducing number of shops and pubs might have relegated it to village status - I'm not sure that hairdressers and takeaways have the same clout. There is a mixture of old and new housing, rear access to surprisingly long backs of a couple of buildings on Main Street, and a few odd old outbuildings from the past, such as these two at No 2 (there is also a third off camera, attached to the brick one on the right). The dead-end road isn't shown on the 1850s OS map, but it is marked as Mungle Street on the next one, surveyed in 1895. It seems likely that it takes its name from the Mungle family, who for two or three generations by the looks of it, ran a general store and the bank in West Calder. If this is the case it does seem a bit odd though, as these were both still being managed by the family in 1895. The question is: were they thought of that highly, was somebody currying favour, or did they think of themselves that highly?! I found a story concerning the shop, which used to sit opposite Cleuch Brae (the road leading under the railway bridge), on the Facebook page of an always reliable local history group. In the 1870s somebody was arguing with the whoever was serving in the shop. The argument resulted in them throwing some gunpowder (which was often sold over the counter as miners were required to bring their own explosives to work) on the fire in the shop. There was an explosion, the windows blew out, and somebody (not a Mungle) caught fire and later died.

Nobody is ever going to exclaim over West Calder's picturesque beauty, but it's a serviceable village with an interesting roof line. The boarded-up shop front just beyond the silver car used to be a newsagent's, and is now a private house.

Kilt makers. Main Street, West Calder.

This large Victorian building was one of two built across the road from one another. The architect was William Baillie (1875-1951), who also designed Image The one on this side of the road has been demolished and replaced by an open space.

A memorial to the victims of the Burngrange Disaster in January 1947. 15 miners were killed in an explosion in the Burngrange oilshale mine. http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/32.html * David Carroll, shale miner, married 36 * William Carroll, shale miner, married 31 (David & William were brothers) * Henry Law Cowie, shale miner, single, 36 * George Easton, shale miner, married, 53 * John Fairley, shale miner, single, 20 * William Gray Boyd Findlay (formerly Shields), shale miner, married 56 * Anthony Gaughan, shale miner, married 45 * William Greenock, shale miner, married, 50 * Thomas Dempster Heggie, shale miner, married 26 * John Sommerville Lightbody, shale miner, married 41 * James McAuley, shale miner, married 59 * John McGarty, shale miner, single, 30 * David Muir, shale miner, single, 25 * Samuel Dargavel Pake, shale miner, married 24 * William Findlay Ritchie, shale miner, married 38

View across the central plaza from beside the town clock, looking towards Scotmid. Somewhere behind the shops is a householder who keeps free-ranging peacocks who can sometimes be seen stalking across the plaza, or even going into Scotmid and nicking bread rolls.