A few months ago, I picked up a leaflet detailing walking trails around the Lanarkshire village of Forth. One route that caught my eye involved an exploration of a historic ironworks. This seemed right up my street and I shoved it on the list. I did the walk on a bright autumn Sunday and the journey took just 45 minutes from Dunfermline. Forth is situated seven miles south of the M8, beyond the West Lothian town of Whitburn. The landscape changed to bleak moorland as I neared my destination. The heritage trail is located near the tiny settlement of Wilsontown on the outskirts of Forth.
Wilsontown today consists of private houses strung either side of a minor road. The surrounding woodland is owned by the Forestry Commission and their car-park has a large map showing the local path network. An old railway embankment parallels the road down to the houses and an access gate allowed me to follow the course of the line to a set of bridge abutments inlaid with an elaborate metal gate. This is the starting point of the ironworks heritage trail and I read the information boards to familiarise myself with the industrial history of the area. The ironworks was founded in 1779 (the first in the county) and continued until 1842, therefore pre-dating the railway I had just walked upon. A workers village was built and two thousand people lived here during the peak years. This combination of workplace and residential homes squeezed into a small rural valley makes Wilsontown particularly interesting from a social history perspective and the place was certainly a forerunner in the Scottish industrial revolution. All the necessary raw materials were mined close at hand: ironstone for the metal ore, coal to fuel the furnace and limestone for purification purposes. The operation was started by three Wilson brothers - John, Robert and William - who had business contacts in London that helped raised the necessary capital. As is often the case with groundbreaking schemes with no established road map to follow, the first incarnation of Wilsontown (see what the brothers did there) was not a long-term success, but the foundations of the modern industry were laid. The development of the hot blast furnace was perhaps the most significant step towards making the production of iron more commercially viable. Engineer James Beaumont Neilson (1792-1865) inadvertently discovered this process at Wilsontown in 1828, while fixing a leaky water tank. He realised the fuel efficiency of the furnace could be improved by fanning it with hot air rather than cold. The current was blown through a heated vessel. Neilson's discovery reduced consumption by a third, enabling raw coal to be used instead of expensive processed coke. It also triggered the exploitation of black band ironstone, the use of which had previously proved unprofitable. Neilson secured patents and became a wealthy man, shrewdly setting the initial licensing rates at a modest level in order to discourage evasion. This meant the royalties took a while to accumulate but they eventually reached a sizeable amount due to a thirst for iron in the shipbuilding and railway industries.
After the Wilson brothers departed in 1812, other oweners tried to make a success of the ironworks, but failed. The lack of a rail connection to Wilsontown meant that produce had to be transported locally by horse-drawn waggonway, then by road to Leith for onward export. This state of affairs placed a serious constraint on the continuing viability of the project and when a mineral line finally arrived in 1860, the works had already been demolished a decade and a half beforehand. In a twist of fate, the type of iron produced at Wilsontown was the ideal sort for railway engineering. Coal mining had now taken over as the dominant local concern and lasted until 1955 (opencast continues to this day). Some of the original workers' housing was still occupied in the 1930s. I followed the trail, looking into the barren shallow valley of the Mouse Water that had once been a hive of industrial activity. The last surviving ruins were reduced to their foundations by the Forestry Commission in 1974 following safety concerns, although this proved a controversial move as the site had recently been designated a scheduled ancient monument. The structures included the remains of two engine houses, a limekiln and a three-arched waggonway bridge. A display of vintage postcards at the entrance gate showed this lost heritage. Further along the walkway, one building seems to have escaped the wrecking ball. The village inn was constructed in 1806 and is now a roofless shell. Standing alone upon the moor, the old hostelry is a fascinating relic from the past. The trail looped around an area now cleared of trees. Commercial forestry came to the area in 1970 and the land around the ironworks was planted with conifers. When this plantation was removed in 2008, it exposed the obvious traces of bell pits on the landscape. From the top corner of the circuit, I could easily pick out the bumps on the earth that showed where ironstone had once been mined. The pits were hand dug and the mineral was found in large balls weighing up to a ton. They then had to be manhandled up a ladder to the surface.
I finished the loop and walked along the railway trackbed back to the car. Passenger trains stopped at Wilsontown between 1867 and 1951, with the terminus also including Forth within its catchment area. The branch split from the present day West Coast Main Line at Auchengray (this station closed in 1966) and the tracks continued beyond Wilsontown to serve various coal pits. Freight traffic ceased in 1964 and the line was lifted. It had been a very informative day out and I had learned more about Scotland's social and economic past. I drove into the centre of Forth for a quick look around. On the road back to Whitburn, I passed Breich Railway Station, situated on one of the four lines that links Edinburgh and Glasgow. The surrounding area was once highly industrialised but is now firmly rural. Breich regulary features in the list of least-used train halts in Scotland. Closure, however, would be a political hot potato.
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