Addiewell
coordinates:
55°50'48.89"N,
3°36'33.15"W
location: Addiewell
village, about two miles West of West Calder, West Lothian
former parish:
West Calder
current
status:
Faraday Place (foreman's housing) still extant, remaining
housing cleared during 1970's?
date
constructed: First housing constructed for
opening of Addiewell Works, c 1868
owner/builder: Young's
Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Co.
"
In the village there are some 360 houses built of brick,
in rows and tenements. There are some 70 single-apartment
houses, and about 290 two-apartment houses. No wash-houses
are provided for any of the tenants, and 90 have no coal-cellars.
The size of single apartments is 14 feet 10 inches by 12
feet; height 8 feet 10 inches. In two-apartment houses the
kitchen measures 13 ft by 11 ft, and the room 9.5 ft by
11 ft; height 8 ft 7 inches in some houses, in others the
height measures 9 feet 3 inches. A number of houses have
gardens.
For
about 300 houses there are only twelve privies of a most
objectionable character. Ash-pits are provided, but they
are built from about 15 to 20 yards from the houses, and
as can readily be imagined, they are a positive pestilence
in the summer time, and at all times a danger to the health
of the community. Clothes poles are studded here and there
in the back courts. Water is procured from some seventeen
stand-pipes, and the sewage flows down by open channels.
The sanitary conditions generally existing are bad in the
extreme. The rental is 2/4 per week for double- and 1/6.
per week for single-apartment houses, inclusive of local
and county rates. The houses are occupied principally by
the oilworkers.
An
Institute with library and reading room is provided, also
room for games, for which the workers are charged 1d. per
week. The houses are owned by Messrs Young's Oil Company.
In Addiewell district there are some 650 houses, with a
population of 2100 persons."
Theodore
K. Irvine, Report on the Housing Conditions in the Scottish
Shale Field, 1914
Livingstone St. Addiewell. 1965. ©Royal Commission on
the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
Rear
view of Faraday Place, Addiewell. October 2009
Site
of rows on North side of Livingstone Street, Addiewell. October
2009
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