Before 1962 is one of the oldest buildings in Livingston, dating from 1732. It was part of the original Livingston village settlement. Livingston is first mentioned in an early 12th-century charter as
Villa Levingi (Leving's town). In 1128,
David I granted the newly founded
Abbey of Holyrood control of the church at Livingston and its income in a charter that was witnessed by
Turstani filii Levingi (Thurstan son of Leving). He built a fortified tower (Livingston Peel) which no longer survives. The settlement that grew up around it became known as Levingstoun, Layingston, and eventually fixed at Livingston. The Leving family controlled the area until dying out in 1512. From 1512 until 1671 the tower house was occupied by the
Murrays of Elibank. In 1670, the
Edinburgh botanic garden was founded by Dr.
Robert Sibbald and Dr.
Andrew Balfour using the plant collection from the Elibank private gardens of
Sir Patrick Murray, 2nd Lord Elibank, following his death in September 1671. In the late 17th century, the Peel was demolished and replaced by a house called Livingston Place. The estate eventually passed from the Murray family to the Cunningham family and it was eventually acquired by the
Earl of Rosebery in 1828 and demolished in 1840. The formal layout and planting in the park reflect the historic gardens, and a new peel mound and moat was recreated to reflect the earlier history. The area around Livingston was historically an important
shale oil area, and the world's first oil boom occurred in West Lothian. This was based on oil extracted from
shale, and by 1870 over 3 million tons of shale were being mined each year in the area around Livingston. Output declined with the discovery of liquid oil reserves around the world in the early 1900s, but shale mining only finally ceased in 1962. The "
bings" that characterise oil shale mining in West Lothian have largely been flattened. Two shale bings nearby are scheduled monuments – Five Sisters and Greendykes. By 1898, the main Livingston village was recorded as having several houses, a mill, a
Church of Scotland church, a United Free church, a school, and a coaching inn. It stands on the site of a pre-Reformation church which appears to have stood on the site from . The nearby Livingston Mill was also built around the same date, in 1770 although there is evidence that suggests there may have been a mill on the site since the 14th or 15th century. Around north of Livingston village, there was
a railway station with a smaller settlement called Livingston Station which is now part of
Deans. Livingston station was built as a settlement to serve the workforce and their families of the nearby Deans Oil Works, owned by the Pumpherston Oil Company. Livingston Station had six streets with homes, as well as a store, a small church and a works institute.
British Railways closed the station on 1 November 1948 following the ending of passenger services on the line. Livingston was the fourth new town of five in Scotland; the others were
East Kilbride,
Glenrothes,
Cumbernauld and
Irvine. Three villages (Livingston Village and Livingston Station in the old parish of Livingston and Bellsquarry in the parish of Mid Calder) and numerous farmsteads were incorporated into the Livingston new town. Many of the initial houses were factory-built. A subsequent edition to the plan was published in 1966 with Livingston intended as the centre of a new population area of up to 250,000 persons in the Lothians. The new town plan envisaged Livingston as a focal point for economic growth in the Lothian region, incorporating 'overspill' population from Glasgow and Edinburgh. The design incorporated a vision of mixed development, connected by a new series of roads in a grid system by means of grade separated junctions and roundabouts. Sir
David Lowe, a local large scale farmer and businessman, was appointed chairman. The first major development of the new town took place in Craigshill, with the first people moving into the newly built housing areas in April 1966 at Broom Walk. Craigshill was said to exemplify the spartan, geometric approach to new town planning, with buildings composed of the Danish style Jesperson blocks and high-density, low-rise concrete homes with Scandinavian style mono-pitch roofs. It is the only UFO incident that was part of a criminal investigation in the
United Kingdom. In 1984, a new railway station was built for the town on the
Shotts Line called
Livingston South which was shortly followed by another station
Livingston North on the redeveloped
Edinburgh to Bathgate Line in 1986. and the town was transferred to the
West Lothian Council. The last major construction operation carried out by the LDC was the
Almondvale Stadium. Housing development continues under West Lothian Council, through private developers such as
Barratt Developments and
Bellway, and under the management of
housing associations such as the Almond Housing Association and the West Lothian Housing Partnership. In September 2021, the town submitted a bid for
city status in the United Kingdom as part of the
Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours Competition. Although the town was not successful in being raised to city status, 2022 marked its 60th anniversary as a town. == Geography ==