What’s on….‍

THIS WEEKS FINAL TALK OF THE SEASON.

The speaker at the May meeting of WLHAAS is the distinguished historian and retired professor of Scottish History at Dundee University, Prof. Christopher Whatley..

His topic is Harvie’s Dyke, which tells the story of newly rich brewer “Lang Tam’ Harvie., who bought the estate of Westthorn on the east side of Glasgow, and built walls around his land. One of them cut across a long-used and well-used path, angered by this destruction of a long held right, protesters pulled down the dyke, but were arrested, and Harvie re-built the dyke. A long legal struggle and a popular campaign dragged on for six years in the 1820s - perhaps the first legal suit about a right -of-way and a famous case in its day.

Come along and hear this truly fascinating and forgotten story. The meeting takes place on Wednesday 20th May at 7.30 in the MacKinnon Scout Hall, 13 Mill Road, Linlithgow Bridge, EH49 7RA. All welcome, non-members by donation.

PAINTING BELOW

Harvie’s Dyke by William Simpson (1823-1899). Simpson painted this in the 1890’s based on a sketch by Robert Carrick of 1836. It shows part of the mansion built for the distiller Thomas ‘Lang Tam’ Harvey in 1819 on the banks of the Clyde. Part of the path that he blocked with his dyke can be seen near the foot of the slope. Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums, 892ba/1889.2.ba. This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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The West Lothian History and Amenity Society starts its 2025-26 season (its 60th Year!) with a talk on Bo’ness whaling in the age of sail, to be given by local historian, Christine Simm, and to be held in Ecclesmachan Village Hall. Why not come along and try us- we’re a friendly society and you’ll get the talk for the price of a donation. As extra incentive, it’s a good evening out and at the first meeting of the session there is tea, coffee and HOME BAKING!

WLHAAS meets on the third Wednesday of the month at 7.30pm and offers seven talks in the course of the year as seen below. We’re always glad to see new faces and if you like what you see , you can join the society for £20 which is less than £3 an evening. Interesting talks by experts on a wide variety of topics, last year we covered from Prehistoric Brochs to Cold War Scotland by experts in their field, plus the occasional organised visit to places of interest - all this and HOME BAKING too.

We meet at a number of venues throughout West Lothian You can join at any meeting, or by e-mailingus.