Landowning entrepreneurs of the 18th and 19th centuries solved their labour problems by building planned villages for significant numbers of industrial workers and fishermen. Such settlements were built close to new large-scale industrial works for weaving (as at New Lanark), distilling or mining. They were also laid out around enlarged harbours, as at the Fishertown in Nairn.
Where industrial production ceased these villages have not always survived. Some fell into ruin and were demolished, reducing the buildings to their foundations.
Faint soil marks visible in the crops in the top of the image are all that remains of the workers village of Kingscavil Rows in West Lothian. The village housed workers who worked in the nearby Linlithgow Oil Works.
HES DP107112
