Bathgate: Guide

Bathgate is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, on the M8 motorway five miles west of Livingston, Scotland|Livingston. Neighbouring Towns are Blackburn, West Lothian|Blackburn, Armadale, West Lothian|Armadale, Fauldhouse, Whitburn, West Lothian|Whitburn, Livingston, Scotland|Livingston, Stoneyburn and Linlithgow. Edinburgh Airport is 13 miles/21 km away.

Bathgate derives its name from Batket, meaning "house in the wood". Early signs of human activity in the area can be seen in the nearby Bathgate hills at Cairnpapple Hill, a historic burial site. Settlement at Bathgate itself dates from at least the 1100s. Bathgate castle was given to Marjorie Bruce in 1328 by her father Robert the Bruce, but was disused by the 1400s. Bathgate remained a small village on the route between Edinburgh and Glasgow until the 1800s.

In 1800 the Glenmavis distillery opened, and, by the opening of Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway in 1849, local mines and quaries were extracting coal, Lime (mineral)|lime, and ironstone. In 1851 James Young discovered that mineral oil could be extracted from coal mined at nearby Boghead and established the first truly commercial oil-works in the world at Bathgate. In the mid-20th century many local industries were closed and West Lothian was designated a 'Special Development Area'—an area where extra financial inducements were offered by the British Government to assist companies wishing to relocate there. As a result in 1961, the British Motor Corporation|BMC—which consisted of the merged Austin Motor Company in Longbridge and Birmingham and Morris Motors in Oxford—located a new Truck|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.

The world's oldest known reptile fossil, Westlothiana lizzae (affectionately referred to Lizzie), was discovered in East Kirkton Quarry, Bathgate in 1987; it is now in The Museum of Scotland.

Notable Bathgate residents have included David Tennant (born in Bathgate but raised in Paisley), 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 where 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 Gala Day or Newland's day), which is 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, will open on the site of the British Leyland Factory in August 2006. It will serve the new area of town called Wester Inch. The school is named after James Young Simpson.

This "Travel Guide" section is drawn from the Wikipedia article "Bathgate". We hope you will edit and improve it. It is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.