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Calderburn Road, WEST CALDER, EH55 8UN

Typical woodclad houses found in Polbeth.

Grassy area with trees separating Calderburn Road from the A71.

'The Buildings of Scotland' is fairly dismissive of Polbeth, which 'consists entirely of 20th century housing'. However it does mention with a hint of approval the timber houses built in 1939 to designs by the practice of David Carr (1905-1986) and William Frederick Howard (1906-1972).

Timber clad houses, a common sight in West Lothian.

Largish village between West Calder and Livingston. There are uniform blocks of similar looking municipal housing. This area contains timber clad houses. Looking north.

This interesting waterfall is situated on Harwood Water, a tributary of the River Almond, at the far side of the large recreation park in Polbeth. The picture was taken from a viewing platform which was only completed a few months back, along with the fish pass that can be seen on the right of the shot. A number of fish passes (also often called fishways or fish ladders) have been constructed in West Lothian over the last few years. They are put in to allow fish to travel upstream when they wouldn't otherwise be able to because of an obstruction, which is usually a weir, as is the case here. Although not always mentioned they do often assist fish travelling downstream too of course - I don't imagine many fish relish the prospect of dropping eight feet from the edge here! This fish pass has to double back on itself so as not to be impassably steep, but it still looks like quite a challenge to me. Like most things, these fish passes are quite technical affairs when you investigate them in more detail, and there is no doubt a lot going on that is hidden from view - the water flow down the way has to be managed carefully and resting pools are usually needed for the fish along the passes, for instance. The falls, which were once a few feet higher, are man-made, and purely decorative (a lade was added later as a bit of an afterthought, to provide water for a walled garden). They were put in in 1880 by James 'Paraffin' Young as a tribute to the famous missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Young, the pioneer of West Lothian's historically important shale oil industry, lived at the nearby Limefield House and was a friend of Livingstone from the days before they had both made their mark -in fact it could be said that Young actually helped Livingstone make his mark, as he sponsored a number of his African trips. Livingstone is reckoned to have been the first European to view the Victoria Falls, on the Zambezi River, between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and it was he who gave it its name - it obviously has a far more exotic real name in a local language, but for whatever reason Livingstone felt duty bound to honour his queen! Considering the Victoria Falls is 350 feet high there isn't much of a comparison really, but it's a nice spot and a good story!

This stone is just under four feet high, and has a cross-section measuring a foot by eight inches. There is no mention of it anywhere online, nor does it appear on any maps, anywhere, from any era. Although the light wasn't in my favour for the picture, what looks like a man-made dimpled pattern can be made out towards the bottom of the stone. The opposite side hasn't been worked, but contains a few curious deep cut-lines towards the bottom. It does look like it was designed to be ornamental, and it could of course have been moved here from somewhere else relatively recently. There are no holes indicating it has ever been used as a gatepost. Limefield Recreation Park is shown on some modern maps as encompassing both the far larger recreational ground (which includes football pitches) on the other side of Harwood Water, as well as the small grassy area to the right of this stone. As far as I'm concerned, however, it should only be the small area beyond the stone, on the way to Polbeth Bowling Club, that takes the name. Until recently there were a couple of tennis courts on the way to the bowling club, but these have now gone, providing a car park for the bowling club which is unlikely to ever reach capacity. The area of grass between the stone and the large parking area is marked on a 1960s OS map as a putting green and, whilst there is no indication of what its purpose was, the whole area of land which today contains the large lawn, car park and bowling club, is shown as being fenced or walled-off from the surrounding woodland on an 1890s OS map.

Mixed housing types on an estate.