Scottish shale Scottish shale

Broxburn - Hutchinson's Oil Works

Alternative names:
Broxburn Paraffin Refinery, Greendykes refinery
Parish:
Uphall, Linlithgowshire
Local authority:
West Lothian
Ownership:
Thomas Hutchison
Robert Bell & Co.
Opened:
Presumably built c.1863
Closed:
Site incorporated into Broxburn Oil Works in 1878
Current status of site:
Industrial premises
Regional overview:
Early oil works in the Broxburn area

broxburn - HutchinsonGD500.jpg

For more information on the complicated history of Broxburn's early oil works, see this overview.

Redwood lists a Hutchinson's Oil Works, which operated between 1864 and 1866, although this reference might relate to the Bishop Street Oil Manufactory in Glasgow operated by George Hutchison & Company or other oil concerns in Glasgow associated with the Hutchison family.

The firm of Thomas Hutchison & Co., based on Lothian Road, Edinburgh, is noted in valuation roles as proprietors of a "paraffine building near Broxburn". Primrose in his book Strathbrock or The history and antiquities of the Parish of Uphall, 1898 states:

"A small refinery was put up in 1863-64, and worked for several years by Mr. Thomas Hutcheson, at the west side of Greendykes Road, where the Broxburn Oil Company's workshops are situated, opposite the present gasworks."

The refinery was presumably established to refine the crude oil produced by other local manufacturers, and the site subsequent became part of the workshop and refinery section of the Broxburn Oil Works.

Right: 25" OS map c.1898, at which time the site lay within the Greendykes refinery of the Broxburn Oil Co Ltd. The red circle marks the presumed site of the oil works.

  • Rateable value by year
      • Date Rateable value Company Remarks
      1864 £15 Thomas Hurchinson
      1865 £70 Thomas Hutchinson
      1866 £104 Thomas Hutchinson
      1867 £200 Thomas Hutchinson
      1868 £200 Robert Bell
      1869 £200 Robert Bell
      1870 £200 Robert Bell name changed to Greendykes
      1871 £200 Robert Bell
      1872 £200 Robert Bell
      1873 £200 Robert Bell
      1874 £200 Robert Bell
      1875 £100 Robert Bell
      1876 £100 Robert Bell not working
      1877 £125 Robert Bell not working
      1878 site taken over by Broxburn Oil Co.
  • Location map
  • Detailed maps
  • Newspaper references

      • PARAFFIN OIL REFINERY. - To be SOLD or LET

      The BROXBURN PARAFFIN OIL REFINERY. The Fields around supply and unlimited quantity of fine Shale of such quality as to be capable of producing a more than ordinary quantity of Superior Crude Oil. The works are in good working order, and lie on the banks of the Canal, and within a short distance of the Branch Railway now forming.

      For particulars apply to Mr. JOHN ROBERTSON, S.S.C., 63 Hanover Street, Edinburgh. Broxburn 19th June.

      Scotsman, 27th June 1868

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