A dormitory village in West Lothian Winchburgh lies between the M9 and M8 motorways 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Broxburn and 6 miles (10 km) east of Linlithgow. It developed in association with its ancient church and in the 19th century with the opening of the Union Canal, the arrival of the railway, quarrying and the manufacture of shale oil. The 15th-century Niddry Castle of the Setons lies a mile (1.5 km) to the southeast and a new village known as the Niddry Rows was created in 1901 by the Oakbank Oil Company. In 1960 the Niddry Castle Oil Works, the last to produce shale oil in Scotland, were closed leaving behind a landscape of shale-oil waste known as 'bings'. A head-on collision between two trains killed 15 and injured 35 1½ miles (2.5 km) northwest of the village on the 13th October 1862.
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