Walking the Union Canal: Lin’s Mill to Broxburn

It’s a chilly and windswept afternoon as we set off. Rain is threatening from the west, our direction of travel, but we press on. We are walking the stretch of the Union Canal between Lin’s Mill and Broxburn, a 2.5-mile section of the waterway. 

We begin at the Lin’s Mill car park, accessed via the road past Clifton Mains and situated at the confluence with one of the canal feeder channels flowing down from Cobbinshaw Reservoir.

Although this will be an otherwise perfectly level walk (the canal being ingeniously designed to track the 73-metre elevation contour along its length, thus avoiding the use of locks), we begin by descending and ascending the many steps as we go down, beneath the Almond Aqueduct, and back up the other side so we can access the walkway on the far bank. This proves ample demonstration of the imposing height of this Victorian engineering triumph.

Linn's Mill Aqueduct carrying the Union Canal over the River Almond

Gathering our breath and looking down from the guard rail at the shallow waters of the River Almond rippling over flat rock strata below, my stomach does a small somersault contemplating the dizzying drop. Incredibly, in the winter of 1895, water from the sluice overflow which controls the height of water in the canal froze, forming an icicle which stretched all the way down to the frozen river 23 metres below. In another slightly chilling fact from this area’s past, a nearby information board notes that William Lin, who lived at the nearby mill, is said to be the last Scot to die of the plague in 1645.

Despite its wintry edge, the air is fragrant too, a mixture perhaps of the gorse (some already in flower), the cut reeds by the water’s edge, and the new crops beginning to sprout in the adjacent fields. There are few trees along this section of the canal and this allows clear views across to Broxburn and Greendykes Bing beyond. As we walk, the white-noise rush of traffic on the M8 builds steadily.

Each of the bridges over the canal are numbered and soon we arrive at 21a, whose side bears the large letters MM – indicating the name by which it is better known, the Millennium Bridge. This bridge carries the M8 over the canal near the point where previously the road’s construction blocked the waterway, the canal having now been diverted 100 metres south to facilitate the new crossing. The bridge took on particular significance at the culmination of the Millennium Link project to reopen the canal when, in May 2000, two boats - one having departed from Linlithgow and one from Ratho - met here bow to bow.

As we continue along the final stretch of our walk, as ever, we keep our eyes peeled for wildlife. However, we draw a blank and, with the wind biting, we conclude that local creatures must have withdrawn to nest or burrow, seeking warmth and shelter. Just as we are contemplating doing much the same, our thoughts turning to steaming mugs of hot chocolate, I glance across the water to see a dark chocolate shape disappear into the water. Just a tail. Too long to be that of a rat or water vole. Could it be…?

For a minute or two we scour the water’s surface, but to no avail. Then, after we walk another 50 metres or so, there is movement on the opposite bank. There, beneath the shelter of a gorse bush, a small otter is returning our gaze. It eyes us cautiously for a few moments before slipping back into the water with effortless fluidity and vanishing from sight…

Find out more about the Union Canal, its heritage and stories, and get the accompanying app, at unioncanalunlocked.org.uk

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Published in Konect April 2023

Author: William Weir

All photos by William Weir