Old pictures of Kirknewton

KIRKNEWTON, about 10 miles west from Edinburgh, is a parish and small Tillage, in the sheriffdom of Mid-Lothian and small debt district; the parish includes the ancient parochial division of Calder Clere, now East Calder ; it is bounded on the west by Mid-Calder, on the east and south by Currie and Ratho, and on the north by Kirkliston and Uphall. The nearest station is at Mid-Calder, half a mile distant, on the Caledonian railway. The parish contains the village of East Calder, which see. The Oakbank Shale oil works, together with a few limestone quarries, afford employment to a considerable number of the inhabitants. The present parish church, built in 1750, stands half a mile from the village, and was renovated in 1871 at a cost of £2,300: within the walls of the old church, standing in the burial ground in the village, was interred the celebrated physician, Dr. William Cullen, d. 5 Feb. 1790; his son Robert, appointed a lord of session in 1796, as Lord Cullen, and a lord of justiciary in 1799, d. 28 Nov. 1810, and was buried in Kirknewton churchyard. Meadowbank is now the seat of J. A. Maconochie-Welwood esq.J.P.

Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Scotland, 1903