Today I m going to tell you about industrial history, great inventors,
political intrigue, assassination AND show you the most fantastic
pre-historic monument that s been standing
for more than five thousand years How many times has somebody said to you
I fancy a FANTASTIC historical day out in Scotland, let s go to Bathgate?
That s right, NEVER! ...but today I m going
to show you why that s wrong. If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe
button at the bottom right of the screen In the meantime, let me tell you a story
If you ve seen this channel, then you ll know that I always like to tell you a story
I suppose today s story is one of misunderstanding.
Not like when Frasier desperately rushes around meddling in things he shouldn t
because he misconstrues romantic interest or he has to extricate himself from an
embarrassing situation he s created by solving somebody else s problem
that never existed in the first place, It s not even the terrible misunderstanding
when you fill up with petrol and mistake the receipt for your mortgage statement.
We ve all done that lately No, this is misunderstanding
that stems as much from our apathy as our assumptions.
You see today I m going to show you that somewhere you d never thought of as a place to visit
Is, in fact, a must see, whether you live in Scotland or are just visiting
I ve started at The Bennie Museum in Bathgate, and we re going to end up at possibly THE most
FANTASTIC prehistoric monument on the Scottish mainland,
but you ll be surprised at how much there is to see along the way.
We re going to travel about six miles in total. Now all but a tiny bit is
drivable, but because it s mainly on B roads If you re energetic you could even walk it.
I m going to take my bike. I ve made another video on the
industrial heritage of west Lothian, and how it kickstarted Scotland s oil boom.
There ll be links at the end, But as we go on this journey through time,
you ll see that this place has so much more If you ve ever been to hospital for an operation,
as you went under and consciousness melted away, it probably never occurred to you
that the guy who first made it possible for you to be unconscious while they cut was a Bathgate
lad called James Young Simpson. If you haven t already, you should
watch my video about him. When you ve been on a luxury cruise ship
or the Ardrossan to Brodrick ferry, did it ever occur to you,
as you munched canapes at the Captain s Table, that leaving Bathgate through the village of
Torphichen you d be passing through the birthplace of Henry Bell,
the man who invented steam ships? I bet you didn t.
You were probably too busy smiling at the name Torphichen
But there s even more interesting stuff in Torphichen than the name suggests.
Because seven centuries before steam ships Torphichen Preceptory was the Scottish home
to the Crusader Knights Hospitaller. Now this is a place worth a visit.
It was originally built by David I. Wasn t everything?
People make much of the Scottish connection to the Knights Templar.
Of course, the other famous order of knights at the time were the Knights Hospitaller.
Their more formal title was actually The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.
Hence the St Johns Ambulance today
and, no doubt, West Lothian s St John s Hospital not far from here.
I went to the neck specialist there with an old rugby injury.
after I got drunk fell off the couch watching a Calcutta cup game.
No time for rugby aches and pains now. There s more to be seen.
Some people have suffered much more than rugby injuries.
The Korean War is known as the forgotten war, but it s not
forgotten in these hills above Bathgate. The Scottish Korean War Memorial is a place
of contemplation, solitude and a memorial to the
eleven hundred and fourteen named men who died a long way from Scottish shores.
If I continue round the hill, then it takes me to Persephone s Temple
a stone circle just beneath the Knock at the top of the Bathgate Hills.
I m prepared to bet that most folk in Scotland don t think of places like this
when they think of Bathgate.
It just shows that if you scratch the surface of the scabs of preconception,
you ll find something surprising... and probably quite itchy.
But Just a few more feet till we re at the top and there s more..
They call this The Knock. From here you can see West Lothian and beyond.
If you look towards Linlithgow, you can see the place where, the first time in the world
ever, a head of state was shot. We invented a hing
and I made a video about that, incidentally. You can see where Mary Queen of Scots was born.
You can see the first village in the UK to get street lighting, where one of the pioneering
workers co-operatives were established. You can visit Outlander film locations
stately homes, a Medieval Castle, a worked out silver mine, the location
of the worlds first commercial oil refinery, a royal palace, take an historic canal boat trip
towards the Falkirk Wheel, are you getting me here?
Tell me in the comments section if you have or would like to visit any of these places.
That way I ll know if I m on the right track with what I m telling you.
but the place in West Lothian I really want to show you
has been here since long before all of them. Let me take you to Cairnpapple.
I know Cairnpapple sounds like a Scottish tropical fruit, but it s actually
well, let me show you This place is truly astonishing.
This hill has been a place of significance for more than five thousand years.
From the earliest times people have been coming up this hill.
Two thousand years before the Romans arrived, people had been coming here
for more than a thousand years.
Now Rome wasn t built in a day and this didn t all happen overnight either.
In the late Neolithic, like once folk had got to grips with farming and that,
they dug these seven holes. Archaeologists found human
cremation remains in them. Then at some point they reckon
the three central sockets had megalithic stone monuments towering out of them.
Later still they raised, twenty-four standing stones in an oval henge round about,
and dug a ditch round that. You know when folk say:
If you had a time machine and you could go back to any time period, when would it be?
Right now, I d want it to be the time when folk were
deciding to extend the construction work here. I d love to have been in the planning meeting to
see who was proposing the extension and why. Who objected and what was their reasoning?
Who overruled them? Was there a vote? Did it come to blows?
Did they remember by this stage who were cremated in the seven holes or why?
Was it privately funded or did it come out of Council Tax?
Belief systems were changing. Much later they were digging
rectangular graves within the line of the 24 henge stones and leaving grave goods.
But by 2000 BC they d stopped using the henge for religious purposes.
Let me repeat that. 2000 years before Jesus came along was when they STOPPED
using the henge here. I often wonder did the change in
ceremonial practises come with violent confrontation like the reformation.
Were they imposed? How far did people come? We know that tools had got here from
North Wales thousands of years before. By the Bronze age somebody decided to build
burial cists inside the stone circle. Then they were later covered in a cairn
of loose stones so the 24 standing stones could be better used as kerb
stones to keep those smaller stones in. Later still an even bigger cairn was built
that you can see as the outer circle today. The inner circle cairn of stones has been removed
and covered over by a dome, which is much higher than the original cairn would have been,
but it allows us to go inside and see what would have been under that cairn.
This would have been submerged in the stones of the cairn and
so would these. Graves that once contained
grave goods, food to take to the afterlife. Provided by those who must inevitably
follow at some time later. Who was it that was so important to have been
given the privilege of this prestige location? Royalty, a religious figure, a politician,
pop star, civil servant, entrepreneur: maybe all of these things wrapped into one.
They wouldn t have seen the world in quite the terms we do. And that s the thing
Whenever I find myself in these places, I always wonder what went through their minds, don t you?
They say the past is another country.
The people buried here certainly wouldn t have understood my language, or I theirs.
I think that s what we find intriguing. We all want to know how they ticked,
what they felt, what they thought. We re curious to understand these people
from that country of a different time. That makes me wonder
If we make so much effort to understand people from a different time,
why we can t take the time to understand the people in our own time today.
Either way there s loads for you to see and do in West Lothian.
In fact I ve got another video to show you more coming up on screen now