Armadale, a police burgh in Bathgate parish, W Linlithgowshire, 2½ miles W by S of Bathgate town, and 1 mile N by W of a station of its own name on the Edinburgh-Airdrie-Glasgow section of the North British. Standing amid extensive fields of coal and ironstone, limestone, and brick-clay, it was merely a hamlet up to about 1851, when, owing to the establishment of neighbouring chemical and paraffin works, it suddenly rose to a town. At present it is lighted with gas, and has a post office under Bathgate, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments; an Established mission church (minister's salary £120; 300 attendants), a Free church, St Paul's Episcopal church (built 1858; 300 attendants), and a Wesleyan chapel, while the one public school open in 1879 had then accommodation for 400 children, an average attendance of 300, and a grant of £199,14s. Pop. of burgh (1861) 2504, (1871) 2708, (1881) 2642, besides 383 in landward portion.
Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and
optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical
errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from
the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be
different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original
text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity.
This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer
