IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
West End, WEST CALDER, EH55 8EJ

West Calder has a large medical centre with its own integral pharmacy, and convenient access to St John's, the large district hospital in Livingston.

This nice old stone house on the way into West Calder from the West also goes by the name of 'Fairfield'. It went up at some point between Ordnance Survey's first two maps of the area, surveyed in the 1850s and 1890s. In the 1890s there was a field behind the house. By the time of the third map, surveyed in 1905, the field behind formed part of a golf course which occupied a long narrow series of fields stretching from the church two doors down to the left, to far beyond where West Calder's Burngrange residential area finishes today. The cemetery, which still marks the edge of the village, was about halfway along the course. There is, coincidentally, still a small unbuilt-on area at the back of this house in amongst the village suburbia, which runs alongside Burngrange Court. It is shown on maps by trees but is now something of a wasteland, so it might improve things if a couple of houses went up there. Or has it been recently been left in such a state to break down resistance to such an idea - i.e. it's all part of a cunning plan?

Occupying a substantial part of Burngrange Park. Former home of West Calder United Image

Modern housing in a cul-de-sac off the main street in West Calder.

Building dates from 1880.

Former home of West Calder United Image

Home of West Calder United. Looking north. Shale bings show that the oil industry was once important here. At the end of the 2007-08 season West Calder United left Burngrange for a new home at Hermand Park on the south side of West Calder. The land here is being developed for housing. (Jan09)

Built in the 1870s and still in regular use, this is one of three churches in West Calder (not including the old ruined one), and the only Roman Catholic one. Is situated on the corner of Young Street, so named because West Calder's first gasworks used to be on it, using oil from the shale mining pioneer James 'Paraffin' Young's company. The Our Lady bit of the name refers to Mary, and St Bridget (correctly Brigid, apparently) is one of Ireland's three patron saints along with Patrick and Columba. The best story I could find about her actually refers to another of Ireland's many saints, St Ninnidh, who, according to improbable legend had his right hand encased in metal after administering her last rites, in order to keep her goodness with him for the rest of his days!

This is the cul-de-sac at the east end of Burngrange Court in West Calder. The large tree was cut down a few months later.

This is the lane section of Burngrange Court in West Calder, heading towards Burngrange Cottages, with just over half an acre of bat-haunted, wild-growing wood and heath on the right, in the midst of all the houses.