River Almond

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Almond, a river of Lanark, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh shires, rising in Shotts parish, 2 miles E of Kirk of Shotts, at an altitude of about 700 feet. It has an eastward course for 14 miles past Blackburn and Livingstone to near Midcalder and thence, in a north-easterly direction, follows the boundary between Linlithgow and Edinburgh shires, past Almondell, Kirkliston, Carlowrie, and Cragiehall, to the Firth of Forth at Cramond. Its total length, exclusive of smaller windings, is 24 miles: its bed, over great part of its course, is broad and either gravelly or rocky: its waters, after heavy rains, often come down in great freshets, overflowing the banks and doing much injury to low, fertile, adjacent lands, but of late years have been extensively restrained by strong and high embankments. Its chief tributaries are Breich Water on the right above Livingstone, the Broxburn on the left above, and the Gogar Burn on the right below, Kirkliston. Its lower reaches traverse a picturesque wooded ravine, and between Midcalder and Kirkliston the stream is crossed by an aqueduct of the Union Canal, and by a viaduct of the Edinburgh and Glasgow branch of the North British railway. The fishing, ruined by oil-works and the steeping of flax, is improving in consequence of legal proceedings, and trout are beginning to be once more found.—Ord. Sur.,shs. 31, 32, 1867-57.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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