The rock, the raws an the pink-grey tips

The rock, the raws an the pink-grey tips
(bi Tammas the Rhymester)

A’ll sing yuis a sang o th’ tips ae Strathbrock
The pink an the grey, the green an the black,
The auld an the aulder, the quick an the deid,
The wee wuid on Niddry, the Castle’s grey heid.
The Castle’s grey wame is ay spillin reid bluid,
The spile fae the ile aht an empire did build.
Spile fae the ile-shale fer guid an fer ill,
Wi wars tae be focht, an strangers tae kill.
Wars the Brox lads foucht in, did yours return?
Tae Greendykes or Halygait Raws bi Brox Burn?
Ow’r the coorse ae a century’s toil i the dark,
A century’s ile fer the great Empire’s spark.
The Green, Black an Grey tips, the powder-puff pink,
A legacy richer than aa the bards’ ink.

Circlin the toun the tips towered on high,
Colossus o Greendykes preserved nou fer ay,
Albyn’s went Alpine nou, Uphaa’s a wuid,
Hopetoun turned early, the ash is weil hid.
Community wuids shroud the Ile Works by Liggat,
Canal wynds aa roond buit nae barges are in it.
Nou ducks an swans swim lightly, coots flap an preen,
Nae roarin din fears thum, ‘r acid nip their een.
Fae Stewartfield, Halygait nae miners step,
Alang the towpaths at the dawin an sunset.
Nou th’ workers o East Mains aa hae motors fine,
In Stankards an Parklands nae raws wull ye find….
Broxburn, O Uphaa! green vale o the brock
The shale made yuis great, forbye bonnie an fine.

Sae cam aa ye tae sing o the tips ae Strathbrock,
The miners an raws, the faimlies, the Works,
The bairns at the gala, the lassies’ braw frocks,
The Beugh an the Caw flowin doon tae the Brox….

TMcC Broxburn 19 June 2021

Notes:

Strathbrock – this name may be older than those of Broxburn and Uphall. It referred to the lands first granted by King David I of Scots to Freskin the Fleming in the mid 12th century. Broxburn and Uphall were and are the main centres of population of Strathbrock. The name meaning large shallow valley (srath) [of the] badger (broc) in the Gaelic, the district is defined as the catchment of the Brox Burn. It is roughly coterminous with the former Parish of Uphall, but the latter did not include Dechmont in the far northwest or Burnside in the far southeast. Strathbrock includes the Beugh and Caw Burns and therefore Uphall Station and Pumpherston, but not Ecclesmachan and Winchburgh, because the Niddry Burn narrowly avoids being a tributary of the Broxburn by flowing into the River Almond 450 metres further downstream. Strictly speaking Niddry Castle Bing lies just outside Strathbrock across the Niddry Burn, while Hopetoun/Niddry/Faucheldean is on the very edge (as was the original Greendykes Farm before moving south to where Greendykes Steadings stands today).
spile = spoil: the shale bings of the area are formed of the residue from the shale oil extraction process of firing in huge furnaces named retorts. The oil was refined in the oil works and the spoil wheeled, at least partly by hand, truck after truck along tramlines, to be emptied at the top of the bing. Technically ash and spent shale, the flesh of the bings is colloquially known as ash. The same material is known elsewhere as slag or dross. The poet here prefers “spoil”.
Niddry = Niddry Bing, just northeast of the massive Greendykes (aka Broxburn Bing), an HES scheduled monument. Its official name during operation being Hopetoun Bing, it stands just north of the site of Hopetoun Oil Works (the land and shale belonged to the Hope Marquesses of Linlithgow, Hopetoun House). The habit of referring to this tip as Faucheldean Bing after the hamlet to its north may be relatively recent. It was evidently abandoned significantly earlier than most in the area, its return to nature as a thickly wooded, pink-soiled ridge being almost complete.
Castle – refers here to Niddry Castle Bing southeast of Winchburgh, not to the castle itself. This huge tip has been greatly reduced in height by excavation of shale spoil for engineering and industrial uses, sae theday it is actually heidless. Ongoing excavation results in the bing’s appearance today – a crater half a mile in diameter. From the outside the crater walls are mainly dark grey. Its busy innards are the same powder-puff pink as Greendykes.
Albyn – Albyn Bing along the north bank of the Union Canal is known locally as The Wee Bing. (Greendykes according to logic would be the Big Bing, but is usually referred to simply as The Tips.) The shale spoil forming the Albyn was extensively excavated as with many other tips, but at a certain point when this work ceased what was left behind was a spectacular “Alpine” landscape. Or that‘s the metaphor that seemed to fit the metrics of the poem anyway 😉. Perhaps ”Trossachs/Lake District in miniature” would be better comparators for the Wee Bing, with its dark rough benns, crags and scree, narrow glens and a few tiny lochs.
East Mains – the largest industrial estate in eastern West Lothian – lies between the lower reaches of the burnlet named Liggat Syke and the West Lothian/Edinburgh border. It occupies the land of the former East Mains farm, just as Greendykes Bing covers former Greendykes Farm fields. Similarly, before disappearing, Stankards Farm gave its name as an alternative to Uphall West Bing and later to one of the prettiest neighbourhoods in present-day Strathbrock.