DISCOVER BATHGATE
Bathgate is a rapidly growing town in West Lothian, Scotland, on the M8 motorway five miles (8 km) west of Livingston. Neighbouring towns are Blackburn, Armadale, Fauldhouse, Whitburn, Livingston, Stoneyburn, and Linlithgow.
Edinburgh Airport is 13 miles (21 km) away. Situated 2 miles (3km) south of the Neolithic burial site at Cairnpapple Hill, Bathgate and the surrounding area show signs of habitation since about 3500 BC.
 MEDIEVAL BATHGATE
Bathgate first enters the chronicles of historys in a confirmation charter by King Malcolm IV of Scotland (1141 – 9 December 1165). In royal charters of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, the name of Bathgate has appeared as: Bathchet (1160), Bathket (1250) and Bathgetum (1316). Batket in the 14th century, and by the 15th appeared as both Bathgat and Bathcat. The name is a “manifest corruption” of the original Cumbric derivation meaning Boar Wood (baedd coed).
In 1315, The daughter of King Robert I of Scotland (Robert The Bruce), Marjorie (alternatively spelt Margery) Bruce, married Walter Stewart (or Steward) (1293– 1326), the 6th Lord High Steward of Scotland. The dowry to her husband included the lands and castle of Bathgate. Walter died at the castle on 9 April 1326.
Dating from around the same time the remains of Bathgate's former parish church still stand at Kirkton. The original 12th Century construction was absorbed by a later build in 1739 when a new church was erected on the same site. This simple whitewashed edifice served the community until its last service on 9 April 1882. King Malcolm IV makes reference to the original church in a charter, granting it to the monks of Holyrood Abbey. Records show that Holyrood Abbey gave the church to the abbot and monks of Newbattle Abbey in 1327
BATHGATE 17 - 18TH CENTURIES
In 1606 silver ore was chanced upon at nearby Hilderston, in the shadow of Cairnpapple Hill, by a prospecting collier: Sandy Maund. This accidental discovery began a short-lived crown “project” in the area. Advisors to King James VI of Scotland became aware how rich in silver the mine may be and in April 1608 repossessed the land for the crown. By December of 1608 it was clear that the ore in the mine was of varying quality and by March 1613 all efforts to extract silver from the area were abandoned.
Bathgate remained a very small rural community until the middle of the 19th century with only a foray by Covenanters in the 17th century to unrest the populace.
BATHGATE 19TH CENTURY
Established around 1800, the Glenmavis Distillery in Bathgate was purchased in 1831 by one John McNab, who produced the eponymous MacNab's Celebrated Glenmavis Dew from the site until the distillery's closure in 1910. In 1885, the distillery was producing 80,000 gallons of single malt a year which was transported to Scotland, England and the colonies.
By the opening of Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway in 1849, local mines and quarries were extracting coal, lime, and ironstone.
James Young’s discovery of cannel coal in the Boghead area of Bathgate, and the subsequent opening of the Bathgate Chemical Works in 1852, the world's first commercial oil-works, manufacturing paraffin oil and paraffin wax, signalled an end to the rural community of previous centuries. When the cannel coal resources dwindled around 1866, Young started distilling paraffin from much more readily available shale. To this date, the landscape of the Lothians is dotted with the orange spoil heaps (called Bings) from this era. Collieries and quarries and the associated “traditional” industries (brickworks, steelworks) were the main employers in Bathgate as the 19th century drew to a close.
BATHGATE 20TH CENTURY
In the mid-20th century, many local industries were closed and West Lothian was designated a 'Special Development Area'. In such areas, extra financial inducements were offered by the British Government to assist companies wishing to relocate. As a result, in 1961, the BMC — which consisted of the merged Austin Motor Company in Longbridge and Birmingham and Morris Motors in Oxford — located a new Truck & Tractor plant in Bathgate rather than expanding Longbridge as originally planned. The plant closed in 1986, regarded by some as an illustration of the failure of the Special Development Areas policy.
On 24 March 1986, the Bathgate-Edinburgh railway line was re-opened to passengers for the first time since the 1950s. This railway line is to be extended to Airdrie allowing train services to run between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Bathgate railway station by December 2010.
The world's oldest known reptile fossil, Westlothiana lizziae (affectionately referred to as Lizzie), was discovered in East Kirkton Quarry, Bathgate in 1987; it is now in the Museum of Scotland.
Early in 1992, the US company Motorola opened a mobile phone manufacturing (Personal Communications Sector or PCS) plant at Easter Inch in Bathgate (now the Pyramids Business Park). In 2001, the global market for mobile phones dropped sharply and as a consequence, despite pressure from the highest levels of UK government, on 24 April 2001 Motorola announced the closure of the plant and the loss of 3,106 jobs. The 93-acre site is now occupied by Disaster Recovery Services Ltd, HMRC, Morrisons and Quintiles.
Bathgate's war memorial was moved by a BBC television programme from a hill near Kirk Road to a landscaped garden in Mid Street on 25 July 1995 (Broadcast 10 September 1995).
Notable Bathgate residents have included David Tennant (born in Bathgate but raised in Paisley); his father Alexander McDonald, former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; Sir James Young Simpson, the discoveror of the anesthetic properties of chloroform; and John Newland, one of the town's major benefactors.
Newland emigrated to the West Indies. There he became a rich planter, using slaves to maintain and harvest his sugar-cane crop. His benefaction allowed the establishment of Bathgate Academy, which was founded in 1833. He is remembered today by an annual pageant (known as the Procession, Gala Day or Newland's day), held on the first Saturday in June.
The local secondary school is Bathgate Academy. The Bathgate primary schools are Balbardie, St Mary's, Boghall, St Columba's, and Windyknowe. A new primary school, Simpson Primary, opened on the site of the British Leyland Factory in August 2007. It serves the new area of town called Wester Inch. The school is named after James Young Simpson.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
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