Blackburn is a town in

West Lothian West Lothian (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, bordering (in a clockwise direction) the City of Edinburgh council area, Scottish Borders, South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire and Falkirk (council area), Falkirk. The modern counci ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, near both

Bathgate Bathgate ( or , ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Linlithgow, Livingston, and West Calder. A number of villages fall under ...

and Livingston, two of the larger towns in the county. It is situated approximately west of

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and east of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

on the old

A8 road This is a list of roads designated A8: * A008 road (Argentina), a beltway around the city of Rosario * ''A8 highway (Australia)'' may refer to: ** A8 (Sydney), a road in the Northern Beaches of Sydney ** East Tamar Highway, a road connecting La ...

History

Blackburn means "the black stream", from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''blæc'' "black" and ''burna'' "stream". The name was recorded as ''Blachebrine'' in 1152. As a small industrial centre, Blackburn originally developed as a cotton-manufacturing town. In the mid-19th century, it became a centre for coal mining. Its small population expanded rapidly from 4,302 in 1961 to around 9,000 by 1965 as a result of employment opportunities in Bathgate to the north and through in-migration following the inception of the Glasgow Overspill Plan. The closure of the

British Leyland British Leyland was a British automotive engineering and manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate formed in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It wa ...

plant in 1986 brought decline to the area, along with the destruction of many homes built during the 1960s. The railway station at Bathgate attracts commuters to live in Blackburn and provides easy access to both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Blackburn House

Blackburn House is a category A-listed Georgian building, situated to the east of the town.

Churches

Blackburn and Seafield Parish Church (

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...

) is located in Blackburn. The congregation celebrated its centenary in 2008. Blackburn Gospel Hall (

Christian Brethren The Open Brethren, sometimes called Christian Brethren, are a group of Evangelical Christian churches that arose in the late 1820s as part of the Assembly Movement within the Plymouth Brethren tradition. They originated in Ireland before spread ...

) meets for worship services and Bible studies in a well-kept church building originally constructed as Blackburn's village school in the late 18th century. Our Lady of Lourdes, a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church located in Blackburn, also serves neighbouring communities and partners with a branch of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Educational facilities

The village has the Roman Catholic secondary St. Kentigern's Academy, which serves students from the surrounding areas of

. Blackburn is also in the catchment area of the non-denominational secondary

Bathgate Academy Bathgate Academy is a Mixed-sex education, mixed secondary school in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland, also serving the nearby town of Blackburn, West Lothian, Blackburn. History Established by the will of John Newland (a Jamaican-plantation sla ...

, which is away. The village also houses three primary schools: Murrayfield Primary, Our Lady of Lourdes Primary and Blackburn Primary as well as Pinewood school, a combination primary/secondary Additional needs school. Formerly the village had its own Blackburn Academy, a non-denominational secondary school that also served students from the surrounding areas of

. However, the academy was closed in 1992 after several new non-denominational high schools had opened in nearby Livingston.

Climate

Sport

Football

Blackburn is home to Scottish football club Blackburn United who play at the Purdie Worldwide Community Stadium (New Murrayfield Park) near the centre of the town and compete in the

East of Scotland Football League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior association football, football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowlan ...

Premier Division. The Club forms the pinnacle of the Blackburn United Community Sports Club.

Taekwondo

Blackburn was previously a big part of Scotia

TaeKwonDo Taekwondo (; ; ) is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving primarily kicking techniques and punching. "Taekwondo" can be translated as ''tae'' ("strike with foot"), ''kwon'' ("strike with hand"), and ''do'' ("the art or way"). In ad ...

, when national competitions were regularly held in the Blackburn Community Centre which, before its demolition, was adjacent to New Murrayfield Park.

Notable people

Susan Boyle Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who rose to fame in 2009 after appearing as a contestant on the third series of '' Britain's Got Talent'', singing " I Dreamed a Dream" from '. As of 2021, Boyle has sold 25 ...

, singer who first came to fame as a contestant on ''

Britain's Got Talent ''Britain's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated to ''BGT'') is a televised British talent show competition, and part of the global '' Got Talent'' franchise created by Simon Cowell. Presented by Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (colloquial ...

'' and whose 2009 debut album ''

I Dreamed a Dream "I Dreamed a Dream" is a song from the 1980 musical ''Les Misérables''. It is a solo that is sung by Fantine during the first act. The music is by Claude-Michel Schönberg, with orchestrations by John Cameron. The English lyrics are by Herbe ...

'' became the fastest selling UK debut album of all time. * John Brown, footballer who attended Blackburn Academy and subsequently played for

Rangers A ranger is typically someone in a law enforcement or military/paramilitary role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called "ranging" or "scouting". The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with prot ...

when the club won nine consecutive Scottish League titles. *

Angela Constance Angela Constance (born 15 July 1970) is a Scottish politician serving as Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs since 2023. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Alm ...

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP) politician and ex-Scottish Government Cabinet Minister. * Steven Craig, footballer who, amongst others, played for

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

Motherwell Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

and

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

. *

Jim Devine James Devine (born 21 May 1953) is a former Labour Party politician in Scotland. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Livingston from 2005 until 2010 and chairman of the Scottish Labour Party between 1994 and 1995. On 16 June 2009, fol ...

, Labour politician who was convicted of fraud and jailed in the

United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal that emerged in 2009, concerning expense claims made by members of the British Parliament in both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and th ...

* Michael Gallagher, Australian paralympic gold medallist. *

Alexander Young (engineer) Alexander Young (December 14, 1833July 2, 1910) was a mechanical engineer and politician in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. He began as an apprentice for Alexander Chaplin & Co. in Glasgow, and then Anderson & Co. in London. He married Ruth Pearce in ...

, mechanical engineer born in the nineteenth century and who went onto become a politician in the

Kingdom of Hawaiʻi The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ɛ ɐwˈpuni həˈvɐjʔi, was an archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands. It was established in 1795 w ...

In British political culture

The town was notably mentioned in a famous speech by MP

Tam Dalyell Sir Thomas Dalyell, 11th Baronet ( ; 9 August 1932 – 26 January 2017), known as Tam Dalyell, was a Scottish politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Linlithgow (formerly West Lothian) from 1962 to 2005. A member of the Labour ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

on 14 November 1977 in which he posed what would become known as the

West Lothian question The West Lothian question, also known as the English question, is a political issue in the United Kingdom. It concerns the question of whether members of Parliament (MPs) from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales who sit in the House of Commo ...