Stewartfield Park ( a short history )

The name Stewartfield Park comes from David Steuart Erskine ( 1742 -1829 ) , the 11th Earl of Buchan , a major landowner in the parish of Uphall , antiquarian , and first historian of the parish . One of the farms on his estate was named Stewartfield in his honour , perhaps by him , as he was a notoriously eccentric , Stewartfield Farm was on the main road , at the end of Aitken Orr Drive .

The Union Canal which forms the northern edge of the park was opened in 1821 . It was built by hundreds of navvies ( short for navigators , building an ' inland navigation ' , i.e , a canal ) using picks and shovels without the benefit of any machinery . The canal was built to bring coal to Edinburgh from the central Scotland coalfields , and to link the city to the Forth and Clyde canal at Falkirk . At a time when public roads were bad , the canal was a cheap way to transport heavy loads such as coal , limestone and farm goods .

The canal has doubled back on itself at this point , heading north east before it turns west again towards Linlithgow . This is because it is a contour canal , following level land to avoid the building of expensive cutttings or aqueducts .