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Explore! Our articles cover anything and everything to do with West Lothian, West Edinburgh and Falkirk.

A selection of what goes into print is published here.

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Alderstone: Plague-watching duties, muster and civil war

Mar 8, 2020
4 min

Alderstone: Plague-watching duties, muster and civil war

A time-travelling resident of the Livingston area from the 15th century would recognise almost nothing if they visited today; it would be a disorientating experience. (There are some who visit from Edinburgh today who would argue the same!) On spotting Alderstone Road however they would know they were in the right place. Alderstone Road cuts through Livingston north to south, from the roundabout on Houston Road at Deans, past the College and into Murieston. The name is deepl

The Calders Witches

Oct 4, 2019
5 min

The Calders Witches

Cunnigar Hill, Mid Calder; when Mid Calder was gripped by the witch hunting craze of the 1640s innocent women were dragged up this hill and put to death. At that time the hill was just outside the village boundary. An artificial hill or “tumulus” probably dating from the bronze age, it earned the name of “Witches Knowe.” The violent deaths of these women added to the long and violent history of this particular spot next to the River Almond. Here in Mid Calder, a locally-bo

There's a coach coming in!

Jul 4, 2012
4 min

There's a coach coming in!

West Lothian’s varied travel history includes a 90 year period when stagecoaches ruled the roads. Between 1760 and 1850, stagecoaches thundered to and fro along the three main roads cutting through the county and connecting Edinburgh and Glasgow. Coaching inns, a few of which remain today, like the Fork & Field in Midcalder and Livingston Village’s Livingston Inn, were purpose-built staging posts strung out along these routes like vital links in a chain, providing food and s

Jan 5, 2009
2 min

Who was Lizzie Bryce?

Lizzie Bryce was born to William Baxter and his wife Margaret Wilson in the parish of Mid Calder in January 1776. She grew up like any other poor child of her time: a few years of schooling at the parish school in Mid Calder, then out to work on a local farm. At the age of 23, Lizzie Baxter married Alexander Bryce, a ploughman who like Lizzie was born and bred in Mid Calder. In the records of the time, the name is always spelled Bryce, not Brice. Their first son, Alexander