Blackburn Mains Farm outside Blackburn,west lothian, EH48
Blackburn Mains farm is situated about a quarter of a mile outside of the West Lothian Town of Blackburn. If you follow the road leading from Blackburn to Addiewell,Stoneyburn, Longridge, or West Calder, you pass right by it. Its the farm on the corner bend. The One with the Barn wall hard against the road.
Blackburn Mains Farm
The History of Blackburn Mains Farm
The Area around where Blackburn Mains Farms sits would have been the very Original Blackburn. It’s first recorded in medieval charter documents under the Old English name “Blachebrine” (meaning “Black stream”. This was named after the dark, peat-stained waters of the local tributary feeding the River Almond.
In the 1690’s it was divided into the communal, Rig n Furrow “fermetouns” of Meikle and Little Blackburn. Around 40 resident families practice subsistence agriculture under the traditional Scottish “runrig” system.
In 1772, George Moncrieff, a Scottish Entrepreneur who had amassed a massive fortune as an Antigua sugar plantation owner, returns to Scotland and purchases the Barony of Blackburn. He acts as a radical agricultural reformer, abolishing the runrig system to establish the formal boundaries of Blackburn Mains as a consolidated, high-yield “home farm” for direct estate management
The Crofting Scheme
o resolve the preservation deadlock, West Lothian Council applies its “Lowland Crofting” planning policy. The farm owners are granted permission to build ten low-density houses on the condition that Blackburn House is released for restoration and a third of the active farmland is designated for community walks and wildlife. This reduces the active farm itself to a smallholding
The Farm Today
The remaining agricultural lands and farmstead continue to operate actively as Blackburn Mains Farm Ltd, with Margaret Taylor and Derek Hamilton serving as registered directors. Today, the farm is owned and run by Andrea and Joseph Taylor (of J B Taylor and Sons). They actively farm the Grade 3.2 capability undulating soil and maintain the land’s ancient gravity-fed field drainage network to prevent their crops and grazing cattle from flooding
What Do You Know?
Do you know something about Blackburn Main’s that we’ve missed? We invite you to share your local knowledge and experiences of Blackburn Mains Farm. The West Lothian History Hub welcomes your Input and encourages the foundation of a collective knowledge database to preserve and celebrate the rich history of our County. Your contributions will help create a comprehensive record that future generations can explore and learn from.