Hopetoun Oil Works

Hopetoun Oil Works operated for a longer period than any other crude oil works in Scotland. It was one of three oil works established by the Uphall Mineral Oil Company Ltd, and supplied crude oil to their Uphall Refinery by means of a circuitous railway line from Uphall (built 1886) that also served the company's Forkneuk pits. The works were initially supplied by Hopetoun No. 1 and Hopetoun No. 2 shale pits, adjacent to the works and subsequently by Hopetoun No. 3 mine which lay to the south east. The company constructed housing for most of the workforce in Niddry Rows.

Amalgamation of the Uphall Oil Company Ltd with Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Company Ltd in 1883 led to new investment in Hopetoun Oil Works and the replacement of the last of the vertical retorts originally used there. New mines were sunk to the north and west of the works served by a mineral railway that eventually extended as far as Fawnspark, close to Philpstoun.

The works were substantially rebuilt in about 1906 and new retorts installed. A substantial album of photographs records this construction work in progress (LVSAV2009.028). Having exhausted available space to dump spent shale in the vicinity of the works, a haulage was constructed as part of these modernisation works, passing beneath the Greendykes to Winchburgh road to a new tip south of the works. This bing was subsequently extended eastward, placing Niddry Rows in continual shadow, and ultimately formed a continuous mass with the Broxburn Oil Company Ltd's Albyn bing.

The works were closed in 1948 and demolished in c.1952.

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The Hopetoun Bings

Spent shale from Hopetoun oil works seems initially to have been tipped to the west of the works, up to a boundary formed by the Niddry burn and the mineral railway that served the works. By 1894, when the second edition OS map was surveyed, waste was being tipped to the north and east of the works, already having buried the site of the first Niddry shale pits, with tipping operations increasingly hemmed in between the Niddry burn and Niddry village. In 1906, the oil works were reconstructed and a new bridge installed beneath the railway to a new tipping site south of the Niddry road.

The 1914 map shows that every part of the land north of the road had been used for tipping, with the course of the Niddry burn diverted in some places. The Hopetoun south bing already extended a considerable distance, with tipping taking place from stepped platforms on either side of the haulage route. As the 20th century progressed, the bing reached its full height, and then the tipping from the bing top extended north eastwards towards the village of Niddry, which lay in a progressively narrowing canyon between the north and south bings.

When the mineral railway between Hopetoun and Broxburn works was closed following the closure of Broxburn works in 1926, it became possible to extend the Hopetoun south bing towards the south. Eventually Hopetoun south bing meet and merged with the bing that extended north from Broxburn oil works, forming a long continuous plateau . This mountain of spent shale is now known as the Greendykes bing and (along with Hopetoun North bing) is now protected as an ancient monument.

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