Local history
The Courier have teamed up with our friends at Almond Valley Heritage Trust to bring our readers stories from West Lothian’s past.
An odd collection of rusty iron and steel, hidden on the banks of Breich Water marks the site of a railway viaduct.
The first viaduct at this point was built soon after 1870 when Young’s Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Co. Ltd. advertised that they were“desirous of receiving tenders for the construction of branch railways from Addiewell works to their shale pits with a stone and iron viaduct over the Breich Water, and other bridges”.
Young’s began mining shale in the Addiewell area in about 1864. These first mines were soon worked out, so the company looked eastwards near Polbeth, where they sunk pits on the Westwood estate but these were not the first pits on the estate.
The land was owned by Captain Robert Steuart, who had served in India. In about 1866 he formed his own company to sink pits and construct an oil works. This was served by a siding from the Caledonian Railway’s loop line, and lay at a respectful distance from Westwood House.
Things didn’t go well and in about 1870 Captain Steuart seemed happy to let mineral rights to Young’s oil company.
Young’s new Westwood No.13 pit lay just beyond the wooded policies of Westwood House, with No.12 a little to the east. Both exploited the Broxburn shale seam that lay beneath the surface, and were linked by a siding running across the Westwood viaduct.
Young’s had signed a 21 year lease of the Westwood minerals, and when this expired in about 1893, it was decided to abandon the workings as uneconomic.
The Oakbank Oil Company realised that more than 500 feet below the old workings in Westwood should lie a rich seam of Dunnet shale.
The company acquired the mineral rights to the estate in 1908, and set about sinking a new Westwood pit.
It opened in 1915 and continued in production until the end of the shale industry in 1962, during which period over 10 million tons of Broxburn and Dunnet shale were produced.
The Oakbank company built a new siding from the Caledonian Railway loop line to serve their Westwood pit, rather than re-instate the viaduct.
As World War Two approached, the shale industry received substantial investment to secure supplies of home-produced oil for the war machine.
It was decided that a new Westwood oil works be constructed.
Development of this ultra-modern works (which threw up the Five Sisters bing) included construction of a new viaduct across the Breich Water at the same site as the original.
It is the sawn-off steel pier of this wartime viaduct that still pops-up from its concrete foundations on the north side of the water.