Programme

Forthcoming Events

The Linlithgow Civic Trust 2011 summer visits have now ended and we are extremely grateful to Mike Vickers for arranging a varied and interesting programme which has been well supported.  Mike is now standing down as Programme Co-ordinator and Chris Long will be organsing a summer visits programme for 2012.

If you have any ideas for the 2012 Programme, please let Chris Long know

Recent Events

Sat 8 October: Visit to Grange

On the cover of the Trust’s best-selling publication ‘Linlithgow Old and New’ peers a tower, half hidden in the trees below Airngarth Hill, to the north of the town.  It is visible from many parts of Linlithgow and can be seen from the M9.  The tower is called ‘Grange’, not 'the Grange' and has been the family home of the Cadell family for generations.

Twenty members of the Trust were grateful for the opportunity to visit Grange on Saturday 8th October 2011.  We were welcomed and shown round by Johnny Caddell, Karen and their family.  The house is the offices of the landscape and architectural practice, AREA Urban Design & Architecture, run by Johnny and Karen, as well as being their private home.

Designed by the Edinburgh architects J N Scott and A Lorne Campbell, the house was built high up on the hill between 1904 and 1909.  It is a magnificent and confidently designed house with touches of art nouveau detail.  The tour included a selection of public rooms, among which were the oak-panelled entrance hall; an elegant and bright, white panelled drawing room which provided a touch of art nouveau detail and a dining room with a range of family portraits, lit by windows which allowed open views to the east and the south.  It is remarkable that so little has changed from the time it was first occupied, despite totally different social conditions.  Who can afford six gardeners these days?  Interestingly the house was built with an emphasis on local produce from the home farm; fruit from the walled garden was well as having space for tennis or golf for the large family of Henry Moubray Cadell who commissioned the house.

William Cadell (1708-77) was one of Scotland’s first industrialists founding the Carron Iron Works in 1759 jointly with Dr John Roebuck and Samuel Garbett.  The lease and subsequent purchase of Grange Estate took place in 1778, principally for its ironstone.  Nineteenth-century members of this distinguished family include the geologist Henry Cadell, author of several books about the geology of West Lothian.

Thu 8, Sat 10 & Sun 11 September: West Lothian Doors Open Days
Linlithgow Civic Trust has taken over running Doors Open Days within West Lothian from West Lothian Council. We had sixteen sites opening as well as two walking tours and a public talk – all free!

The West Lothian Doors Open programme started on Thursday 8th September with a talk in the Burgh Halls by Malcolm Fraser, a man who is not just the lead architect on the recent restoration, but is also one of Scotland’s leaders in this field.

Most activities took place on Saturday 10th, with many sites open, mostly in Linlithgow but also in Blackburn, Livingston, Abercorn and Kingscavil. Our oldest building will be Abercorn Church, which dates back to at least the eleventh century, while our most modern one will be the new civic centre in Livingston. We have had a great response from Linlithgow’s churches, which will make a fascinating tour in themselves. Many buildings are laying on activities. Also on the 10th, we will have a tour of the Canal Basin, and the chance to see inside of Canal House, but book early, as places are limited.

On Sunday 11th we finished off with Linlithgow Burgh Halls opening and a tour of St Michael’s graveyard by local historian and acclaimed speaker Bruce Jamieson.

Thursday 18 August - Visit to view Midhope Castle

A party of 18 of us took an evening visit first to Midhope Castle and then to Abercorn Church.

As it's close to Linlithgow and included on one the Civic Trust’s walks, a number of us had visited the Castle before.  This time we had Alex Adamson as our expert guide.  Alex had dug into both the Historic Scotland and RCAHMS archives and had come up with a history of the castle from 1438 to the present day.  Over the gateway there is an inscription 'AD 1582 MB' – 'AD' standing for Alexander Drummond and 'MB' for his wife Marjory Bruce.  The Castle appears to have changed hands a number of times between the Livingstons and the Hopes in its early history and was used latterly as estate workers dwellings.  However by 1962 the Castle was described as derelict with the main roof collapsed.  A painted ceiling was removed and has been preserved in Edinburgh but a series of wall paintings have been lost.  However in 1986 a grant was provided to make the building water tight and the castle is now reroofed, although some of the windows are no longer glazed.  Alex will make his make his notes on the Castle generally available.

As we walked back to our cars, Alex pointed out what he considered the largest dovecot he had ever seen - he estimated that in its heyday it would have housed 2,000 pigeons.

Then to Abercorn Church in the fading light.  Most had visited the church before, but we noticed the contrast between the wonderfully maintained Church and the sorry state of the Castle.  The minister had discouraged us from using the electric light in the Church so we used torches to pick out the salient features of the inside of the Church.  The Church is surprisingly spacious with the side aisle wider and higher than the nave.  A particular delight was the Hopetoun loft at the east end overlooking the pulpit.  The loft is richly decorated with the family crest on rear wall.

Like the Castle, the Church has been much altered during its lifetime - most recently at the end of the 19th century when the building was extended and the roof raised. It is understood that a doorway in the south wall may date back to the 11th century.

A key feature is the well kept churchyard with many old tomb-stones dating back to the 1600s and earlier – many with the familiar skull, cross bones and hour glasses rather than inscriptions.  There is also a small museum with a fine collection of ancient stones which luckily did have electric lighting for us to use.

Thu 29 June: Civic Trust Visit to Champfleurie

LCT ChairmenA party of 11 LCT Members visited Champfleurie Estate on Thursday 29 June where we were entertained on a lovely evening by Ricky Kerr, the Laird of Champfleurie.

Ricky guided us round the outside of the house, pointing out the architecture and the fine points of stonework, roofing and chimney detail, all of which he knows intimately: he has maintained them lovingly over the last 25 years! To Ricky, a holiday is to finish working on his cleaning equipment business and to get onto the roof with his huge cherry picker and replace a few slates or renew a chimney; the house has 22 chimneys and Ricky believes there are 22 rooms. The grounds are magnificent with many large beeches and limes and the lawns, but they need cutting twice a week; maybe not quite such a holiday! Ricky bought the house as he considered it met his aspirations as a family house and a place to do business; the basement admiral as a store room.

Standing outside the front door Ricky gave us the bones of the history of the House and Estate. It dates back to the 15 th Century and the site has certainly been occupied since then and massive foundations are still to be seen. However the present House was built by Admiral Robert Johnston Stewart who had other properties in Wigtownshire and the grounds still stretches over 40 acres. There have been four owners since, with Sir Francis and Lady Tudsbery owning the property during most of the 20 th Century. For a comprehensive history of Champfleurie and its owners please see Ricky’s Champfleurie Estates website.

After the tour of the outside Ricky invited us into the house.  The main public room is a spacious room and this brought out one point that Ricky had stressed from the outside tour; the house has been continuously extended with what could have been a conservatory now included in the main room and still demarcated by a lovely arch. We passed the magnificent staircase and entered the library and lounge, used for offices of the business; both with splendid views over the grounds and estate.

Finally Ricky invited us into a barbeque house at the northwest of the lawns to sip a glass of wine and look out over the vale of Linlithgow with an Italianate sunset across the Flint hills between Linlithgow and Bo’Ness, with a little imagination, to Ben Lomond and the Troscahs. No wonder Mary Queen of Scots named the site Champfleurie!

Wed 18 May: Civic Trust visit to Linlithgow Burgh Halls

A small party of us visited the Burgh Halls on 18 May. Our hosts was Thirza Wilson, Venue Coordinator, and her assistant who are responsible for the Halls and their upkeep.

I was staggered by the utter change in the entrance, gone are the cramped, dark and claustrophobic passage ways. You enter up a short flight of steps to an open space, full of light with a pleasing counter set back so that you can appreciate the space and see through to the new Glasshouse Cafe to your front left and through the glass floor to ceiling windows to the rose garden; the garden is still grass but perhaps none the worse for that. Round to your left is more open space with cabinets of memorabilia and large graphic displays of the history of Linlithgow and the Halls themselves.

We were taken up to the top hall; there is a new lift for those who find the stairs daunting, gone is the quaint chair that wrapped round the banister. And again what a change to the hall, light, airy with restored tiled fireplaces above which are large paintings, ancient and modern. The hall is lit by two modern chandeliers.

So down to the main hall and we were not surprised that it too has had a face lift, again light cream paint and the big change here are three big French windows to the new balcony. Under the top hall is the art gallery; how wonderful to have an art gallery in the town centre – the show at present is ‘Dialogue with the Land’, exciting landscapes by Kate Downie.

Finally down to the dungeons – well the converted tourist information centre. The video room is now a meeting room and the centre itself is an education centre set out as a class room. Both are for hire and are modestly priced.

A key feature brought out by the architects, Malcolm Fraser Architects, is that all the walls in the stair-case have been brought back to their natural stone and, in some cases plain brick; it may sound odd but it looks good.

The Burgh Halls are now open to the public daily so if you haven’t been already, go along and see for yourself; I’m sure Thirza and her staff will make you most welcome.

My thanks to Thirza for letting me know that the architects were Malcolm Fraser Architects and the redevelopment work was funded by West Lothian Council in partnership with Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland and The National Lottery through Creative Scotland at a cost of £5.2 million.

Thu 12 May: Civic Trust Visit to the National Library of Scotland

A party of us visited the National Library of Scotland. Our host was Olive Geddes of the Manuscripts Section and the visit was split into two halves.

The first half was a general tour of the Library and its facilities. First, we were introduced to facilities open to the public to just walk in. These include a lovely entrance hall with a coffee shop open till 8 pm and a display area providing background to the Library history and housing its current exhibitions. We then went round the Reading and Special and Manuscript Rooms. For these you need a reading pass to enter and we noted that the Rooms were still in good use at 7:30 pm. Finally we were shown just one of over 13 floors of the book holdings in the building. The total holding including an off-site store in Causewayside is currently 14 million books, many of which are now accessible on-line. The Library is a Legal Deposit library requiring that UK publishers must offer a copy of all the books they publish to the Library.

For the second half, Olive had set out a range of manuscripts related to Linlithgow. These spanned the period from the 1500’s to 1950’s. There was much about the shoemakers’ guild and their rules about good etiquette at meetings that modern groups might do well to emulate. There were records on the sources of wool from all over Scotland and the North of England used by the dyers. There was a whole range of documents from Grange including details of apprentices that trained there. There was a factual catalogue of people who caught cholera in the 1840s and their fate. There were also two lovely drawings by a lady in the 1825 of Linlithgow east and west from the Three Crowns and a number of diaries describing visits to Linlithgow.

All this manuscript material had been lovingly and expertly curated either in their original bindings or in bindings made up by Library staff.

Olive emphasised that the Library is always looking for new material on Scotland itself or on Scots who had worked abroad. Ideally such material would be donated but if of real significance purchased by the Library for the Nation.

I think all of us were very pleasantly surprised with the atmosphere within the Library for study and with the quality of the work of the Manuscript Section. For those who have a little time why not drop in while you are in Edinburgh and look around?

Sat 9 April: LCT Annual General Meeting
The 40th Annual General Meeting of the Linlithgow Civic Trust was held on Saturday 9th April 2011 in the recently refurbished Linlithgow Burgh Halls.  The Business Meeting will be followed by a glass of wine or soft drink and a light finger buffet.  As this was our 40th Anniversary, we commissioned a special celebration cake and many of our and previous chairmen were present to commemorate the event.
Sun 27 March: Visit to Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh
A small party of us visited Dynamic Earth on Sunday 27th March.

We were privileged to receive a great introduction from Prof Stuart Monro – Scientific Director. Stuart has been with Dynamic Earth right from its inception. Dynamic Earth is a charity but recognises the need to run the enterprise as a business and Stuart is keen to stress that the enterprise is still going strong after 11 years. The site was designated for urban renewal when it was vacated by Scottish & Newcastle who had a bottling plant there and Dynamic Earth was the first to take advantage of the opportunity the site offered. Since then many other organisations have established themselves including The Scotsman and of course The Parliament.

So why Dynamic Earth – well there’s Arthur’s Seat an extinct volcano and Salisbury Crags dominating the Edinburgh landscape and there’s James Hutton –a native of Edinburgh and the father of modern geology to honour. Hutton propounded three theories ‘ the present is key to the past’, ‘the past is key to the future’ and the ‘ enormity of geological and time’. Stuart gave us a fascinating slide tour of how these theories are demonstrated through the exhibits provided by Dynamic Earth, starting from the Big Bang, the formation of the stars and the planets, through the vulcanism and the laying down of the Earth to the present day environment. We were all very conscious that the Earth is indeed ‘dynamic’ with the earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand and the tsunami devastating Japan but Stuart warned of the big one, one day in Yellowstone that will dwarf Mount St Helen’s. And of course he touched on Climate Change but pointed out that without the greenhouse gases we would not have the comfortable planet that we have, it’s just that we need to keep the level of gas under control.

Oh! And we were all allowed to take our time moving though all the wonderful exhibits at our own speed . For those who have been to Dynamic Earth before, it is always evolving and we were able to partake of the new ‘4D Biome experience’ travelling from the Arctic to the Equatorial Rainforests from the comfort of the space craft’s bucket seats.

Stuart emphasised that Dynamic Earth’s mission is to Inform & Entertain both young and old alike and he’s so right.

It was only a pity that so few members were able to come and experience what we did and our thanks go very much to Stuart Monro for pointing us in the right direction with a touch of the built as well as the natural environment.

Thu 17 Feb: Annet Lecture, 7.30pm Linlithgow Primary School
The speaker at the 2011 Annet Lecture, organised by Linlithgow Heritage Trust, was Dr Miles Oglethorpe of Historic Scotland.  His subject was: “Scotland's Energy: Truly Heroic Industries”.
 

Earlier Visit and Events: