Overview of Armadale

Armadale in West Lothian is a long, linear town situated 2 miles (3 km) west of Bathgate. It is known locally as The Dale. In the 1850s this rural hamlet developed into a major industrial site through the exploitation of local deposits of coal, ironstone, limestone and brick-clay. Several quarries, steelworks and tile, brick and fire-brick yards operated in the early 20th Century and with the demise of mining, industrial estates were established in the 1970s.

Originally known as Barbauchlaw, indicating an area for boar hunting, the lands were bought by Sir William Honeyman in 1790 and named after the town on his estates in Sutherland. Later, as a stop on the Edinburgh-Glasgow 'Great Road', Armadale added an inn and a tollhouse; the railway arrived in 1855, taking coal and ironstone to the Monkland Iron Company's Works. Its unusual public house, The Goth (1911), was designed on the Swedish Gothenburg System which sought to reduce alcohol consumption by providing ample coffee and food.