Newbridge & Ratho Station

Origin of Name: Newbridge comes from the Anglian “Brycg” meaning bridge and may refer to a new bridge over the river Almond. The hamlet was originally known as Old Liston. Ratho Station derives from the railway station that used to be nearby. The name Ratho is a Gaelic word referring to two large fort settlements.

Position: Kirkliston to the north, Ingliston to the east, Ratho to the south and West Lothian to the west. See map above.

Historical notes: There were settlements in this area going back to at least 250BC. In 2001, during work on an industrial estate near the Newbridge roundabout, a complete bronze age chariot was discovered - an unusual find. At the end of Bridge street sits Huly hill which is actually a bronze age burial cairn surrounded by three standing stones. There are further stones now in the grounds of an industrial estate south of the A89. In the 1680s the lands of what is now Newbridge were owned by an Archibald Hope and in 1683 the Newbridge Inn was built.
In a map of 1816 (Ratho Station didn't exist) there was a house called Lochend with the name Smellie Esq on the site of the current Lochend industrial estate at Ratho Station. This hamlet seems to have grown along with the railway which would make it Victorian in origin.The first buildings here were Lillybank Cottages. In the 1950s the Hillwood area was built and the Lochend industrial estate was built in the early 1970s. The Co-op on Station Road , however, was first opened in 1883.

Today: Pleasant commuter suburbs with both areas becoming part of Edinburgh in 1975. They are separated from each other by the M8 motorway and the the Newbridge roundabout is one of the busiest in the city. There is a mixture of housing both public and private with few flats. There are many different industrial estates in the area. The airport is very close and planes fly very low down Old Liston Road.

Did You Know: There was a toll bar sited roughly where Bridge Street in Newbridge is nowadays.

A serious rail crash happened near Ratho Station in 1917 which killed 12 people and injured 46. An express train collided with an engine.

In the 2001 census Newbridge and Ratho Station had a combined population of 1013 people.

Links:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scotlandshistory/caledonianspictsromans/newbridgechariot/index.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbridge_chariot