Blackridge

Blackridge
West Lothian
Blackridge Parish Church
Location
Grid reference:	NS894670
Location:	55°53’2"N, 3°46’1"W
Data
Post town:	Bathgate
Postcode:	EH48
Dialling code:	01501
Local Government
Council:	West Lothian
Parliamentary constituency:	Linlithgow and East Falkirk

Blackridge is a small town in West Lothian, adjacent to the border with Lanarkshire, marked here by the Barbauchlaw Burn.

The village name dates to 1581, first recorded as Blakrig. Later, Blackrig and then Blackrigg became the standard spelling until Blackridge became the norm in official documents after about 1840. Blackrig remains the local pronunciation.

The modern village dates from the building of the new Edinburgh-Glasgow road in 1796 and the building of a coaching inn midway between the cities; the inn was named “Westcraigs Inn” but known locally as “the Craig Inn”. The inn now serves as housing, a community centre and library.

The village has a station on the North Clyde line, on the Lanarkshire side of the border. It was opened in 2010, after the previous station, named Westcraigs was closed in 1956.

Church

There is one church remaining in the village; the Church of Scotland parish church.

The present stone building was built by public subscription and donations and is situated on the Main Street in the middle of the village and celebrated its centenary in 2001.

Industry

After the arrival of the railway line linking Airdrie and Bathgate in 1862, the exploitation of local coal reserves became more practicable although it was not until the late 1880s that the first local colliery was sunk at Westrigg. The village grew from a population of under 200 to over 2,000 by First World War with coal mining and whinstone quarrying the main employments.

The last colliery closed in the late 1950s and Blackridge became a commuter village for nearby towns with, for much of the 1960s and 1970s, the British Leyland truck and tractor assembly plant at Bathgate the principal employer.

Housing

The building of council housing from the late 1920s until the late 1960s established the modern village with 85% of residents renting from the local authority. Small scale private house building in the 1980s gave way to more substantial developments in the 1990s and early 21st century and the current local plan visualises a doubling of the number of dwellings to around 1,500 by the early 2010s.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Blackridge)

• Blackridge