Blackridge, West Lothian

Blackridge is a small town in the western part of West Lothian, Scotland.The village name dates to 1581, first recorded as Blakrig. Later, Blackrig and then Blackrigg became the standard spelling until Blackridge became the norm in official documents after about 1840. Blackrig remains the local pronunciation.The population, as of the mid-2013 estimate, of Blackridge is 1,926. Please note this also includes Westriggs. The modern village dates from the building of the new Edinburgh-Glasgow road in 1796 and the building of a coaching inn midway between the cities, officially Westcraigs Inn but known locally as the Craig Inn. The inn now serves as housing, a community centre and library.IndustryAfter the arrival of the railway line linking Airdrie and Bathgate in 1862, the exploitation of local coal reserves became more practicable although it was not until the late 1880s that the first local colliery was sunk at Westrigg. The village grew from a population of under 200 to over 2,000 by World War I with coal mining and whinstone quarrying the main employments.The last colliery closed in the late 1950s and Blackridge became a dormitory for nearby towns with, for much of the 1960s and 1970s, the British Leyland truck and tractor assembly plant at Bathgate the principal employer.