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When a local collier found some unusual stones at Hilderston, near Cairnpapple in the Bathgate Hills, he couldn’t have imagined the stir in London his discovery would cause – and the personal embarrassment of King James VI himself. He took a sample of what he suspected to be silver ore to a well-known metallurgist and mining engineer in Leadhills, Sir Bevis Bulmer. Bulmer was very excited; the silver potential was so promising that the landowner, Sir Thomas Hamilton, went ah

Benefits cuts, austerity measures, local authority budgets stretched to the limit, households struggling to make ends meet, social unease bubbling over into demonstrations and strikes in some places.....sound familiar? The date is August 1926 and a group of protesters are gathered outside the council offices in West Calder to protest against benefits cuts – specifically the withdrawal of the subsistence food allowance paid to destitute mining families during the miners' strik

The sign welcoming visitors to Pumpherston says “Historic centre of shale oil industry.” This simple description belies the enormity of the place that Pumpherston had in the Scottish - and indeed the British - economy for almost a century. Between the late 1800s and the mid 1900s, Pumpherston was the epicentre of Britain's most important industry and many villages around West Lothian were practically owned by the Pumpherston Oil Company. Many companies jumped on the very lucr