West Lothian is peppered with Lost Villages that once were the homes to miners and their families. Some still have remnants existing today that have been Incorporated into modern developments. Others have all but gone and lost forever, save for a few remnants that can be found if you know where to look.

The Lost Villages of West Lothian

In the Mid 19th Century, West Lothian would undergo some serious changes with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. With the discovery of Shale and Coal in the area, small mining operations sprung up overnight, all over West Lothian.

These were mostly just small operations to begin with, using shallow mining methods which involved frequently moving the mine workings from place to place, back-filling one hole with the spoil from a new as they went. So as a result, West Lothian had mining operations going on all over the place, especially in the ‘Black West’ side of the shire where the coal fields were vast.

But it took the labour of working people to operate these mines, so this attracted people from all over Europe. Migrant workers from Ireland, Poland, Lithuania and many other Eastern European countries came to work in these pits. To begin with, many of the working miners were known to have walked for miles over the Mossy bogland each day to get to work in their respective collieries. But that would soon change

Mining Villages

In order to give their workers residencies closer to work, the Mining Companies would actually build their own mining villages. These were ‘Mining Villages’ in their basic form. They were built by and owned by the mining companies and the small and cramped hovels built for the miners were allocated to the workers as part of their Job. This meant that if the workers lost their Job, then they lost their home too.

By the late 19th century, slavery may have been abolished but here in West Lothian, as like many other places, the workers were often worse off than slaves because unlike with slave ownership where the owner was legally obliged to keep their slaves fed and watered, the mining companies held no such obligation. If there was No work, there was no pay, quite simple.

If the miners didnt like it, they were completely Free to leave. But where would they go? Most mining companies kept Blacklists of Employees who had been sacked or known as agitators. If your name was on the Blacklist, you could find it exceedingly hard to find work in any other pit and of course, No work meant nowhere to live.

Lost in Time

Many of these villages were to grow and become bustling little communities which thrived throughout the Industrial Revolution. But as the 20th century brought with it modern mining methods and technology, many of the small pits were swallowed up by the bigger ones. This led to the decline of these villages and many were abandoned and later either demolished or completely buried. The residents of these villages were mostly to move into the bigger towns that were becoming more and more established.

List of West Lothians Lost Villages