Pumpherston is a small dormitory village in West Lothian

West Lothian

West Lothian is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland, and a Lieutenancy area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, the Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire....

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Originally a small industrial village to the nearby shale

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...

 mine and works, it now adjoins the new town

New town

A new town is a specific type of a planned community, or planned city, that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are uncommon in new...

 of Livingston

Livingston, Scotland

Livingston is a town in West Lothian, Scotland. It is the fourth post-WWII new town to be built in Scotland, designated in 1962. It is about 15 miles west of Edinburgh and 30 miles east of Glasgow, and is bordered by the towns of Broxburn to the northeast and Bathgate to the northwest.Livingston...

, which was constructed alongside Pumpherston in the late 1960s and quickly grew much larger than its neighbours.

Music

There have been many bands and singers to emerge from Pumpherston. For years they had their very own pipe band until it was engulfed by the name of Livingston. Josie Wood excelled with his band while others such as Route66, The Suspects and Faith rocked their way through the late 70's & early 80's. The latter of the two bands merged to form Lynden Arden in the mid 80's. In 1988 another band Zire arrived on the scene, playing a charity gig for the Lockerbie air disaster in the local Institute Hall. A few members of Zire then merged with two of Lynden Arden to form The Dukla Slam in 1992. The most well known of all these artists from Pumpherston was Kerry McGregor who had success with many ventures including the Eurovision qualifiers and the X Factor as well as acting.

Amenities

Pumpherston still has its own primary school, which is shared with near neighbour Uphall Station

Uphall Station

Uphall Station is a small village located in the geographical county of West Lothian, Scotland. The name is derived from neighbouring town Uphall on account of there being a small railway station located on the northeast perimeter of the village. The village is situated southeast of neighbouring...

. For secondary education pupils travel to one of the high schools in Broxburn

Broxburn, West Lothian

Broxburn is a town in West Lothian, Scotland located west of Edinburgh on the A8 road. It is situated approximately from Edinburgh Airport, and to the north of Livingston....

 or West Calder

West Calder

West Calder is a village in West Lothian, Scotland, located 4 miles west of Livingston. The village was an important centre for the oil shale economy in the 19th and 20th Centuries. West Calder has its own railway station. It is also has the most northerly centre of the Dogs Trust, closely followed...

.

Pumpherston has a variety of sporting amenities including Pumpherston Golf Club, Pumpherston Bowling Club and Recreation Park, the home of Pumpherston Juniors Football Club (Pumpherston F.C.

Pumpherston F.C.

Pumpherston F.C. are a Scottish Junior football club based in Pumpherston, near Livingston, West Lothian. Their home ground is Recreation Park, with one of the largest pitches in Scottish football. Club colours are gold and black....

).

In 2005 Pumpherston United F.C was formed to provide an opportunity for children from Pumpherston and the surrounding areas to take part in regular sporting activities. In only its third year the youth football club achieved an Access Level Award through West Lothian Council

West Lothian Council

West Lothian Council is one of 32 local authorities in Scotland and has 32 elected members Councillors who are elected every 4 years.The Council makes its decisions at its meetings, or those of its Committees and Sub-Committees....

's Community Sports Club Development Scheme. The certificate awarded to the club confirms that Pumpherston United F.C demonstrates appropriate levels of efficiency in Child Protection, Good Coaching Practice, Club Management and First Aid.

Pumpherston has produced a few footballers who have made the grade through the years. Walter 'Gunner' McWilliams played for Hibernian while Archie Murphy had a spell with Alloa Athletic. Walter's son Derek also played for Hibernian as well as Dundee, Falkirk, Dunfermline, Partick Thistle, Clydebank and Airdrie. Around the same time Steve Pittman played for East Fife, Shrewsbury Town, Dundee and Partick Thistle (alongside Derek) before heading for his birthplace of the U.S.A to turn out for Kansas City Wizards and Fort Lauderdale Strikers among others. He was also capped by his country.
His son Scott is keeping it in the family and is on the books at Hamilton Academicals.

The Famous "Dukla Pumpherston

Dukla Pumpherston

Dukla Pumpherston is a charity football team based in Scotland, and is captained by Scottish football pundit Chick Young.The name was based on the fictional team "Dukla Pumpherston Sawmill and Tannery" created by Tony Roper in 1980s comedy programme Naked Radio; the name is a comic juxtaposition of...

" football team was purely fictional, having been used by the comedian Tony Roper

Tony Roper (actor)

Tony Roper is a Scottish actor, comedian, playwright and writer.His first major starring role was in Scotch and Wry. He wrote the classic comedy-drama The Steamie in 1988. He achieved even greater fame in Naked Video and in the spin off series Rab C Nesbitt, in which he played Rab's...

, sometime in the 1980s for the Naked Radio show, The name "Dukla Pumpherston" came from a play called "The Broons" held in Pumpherston Scout Hall circa 1982. It was the second play held there written by Scud Broon, the first was a play called "Out for the Count". Along with the play group around that time was their football team Pumpherston All-Stars.

Both plays had their scripts sent to Radio Scotland with a few of Scud's poems sent by Jim McDougall. Many of the poems were read out and a few ideas from the plays were used in other things, including Dukla Pumpherston (Tony Roper added the words 'Sawmill and Tannery' in the 1980's radio show Naked Radio). However, it is now a team playing to raise funds and awareness for various charities.

History

The history Pumpherston, the story of a shale oil village

was commissioned by BP

BP

BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...

 and collated and edited by local area historian Sybil Cavanagh. This book acknowledges a previous history by a Mr Vic Armstrong. Both books are out of print as of 2009.

The specific oil shale retort

Pumpherston retort

The Pumpherston retort was a type of oil-shale retort used in Scotland at the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. It marked separation of the oil-shale industry from the coal industry as it was designed specifically for oil-shale retorting...

, invented in 1894 and marking the separation of the oil shale industry

Oil shale industry

Oil shale industry is an industry of mining and processing of oil shale—a fine-grained sedimentary rock, containing significant amounts of kerogen , from which liquid hydrocarbons can be manufactured. The industry has developed in Brazil, China, Estonia and to some extent in Germany, Israel and...

 from the coal industry, is named after the village.

Origin of the name

There does not seem to be an unambiguous derivation for the origin of the name.

Various suggestions have been made as to the meaning of the name Pumpherston. One writer suggested it was from 'pamper', a short thickset man; another suggested it was from 'pundler', the official in the middle ages who impounded stray cattle. [A more likely] derivation is from 'ap Humphrey' meaning son of Humphrey.

Pomphray was probably [the name of] one of the Flemish (Belgian) noblemen invited by King David I and his grandson Malcolm IV to settle in Scotland in the twelfth century ... Pomphray would have been granted the lands north of the Almond in return for serving the king in battle ... around the castle built by Pomphray, probably a wooden structure later replaced by a stone building, would have grown up a little settlement and farm to house and feed his adherents and servants - Pomphray's town.

Manu de Pomphray was a Belgian mercenary who was rewarded for his "deeds" by King Malcolm circa 1130-1145

—Sybil Cavanagh et al.

Archaeology

There is evidence of the Roman occupation

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 approximately two miles north east of Pumpherston - at Roman Camp, near Broxburn

Broxburn, West Lothian

Broxburn is a town in West Lothian, Scotland located west of Edinburgh on the A8 road. It is situated approximately from Edinburgh Airport, and to the north of Livingston....

.