Greendykes Shale Bing, Broxburn Kirkliston, City of Edinburgh Council Area, Scotland, UK
Scheduled Monument Statement of Significance
© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument is of national importance as one of the very few intact spent-shale bings left in central Scotland. The shale oil industry was locally important for about a century, and its pioneer, James Young, developed refining techniques still used in the oil industry. This bing, with its neighbour Faucheldean, gives striking evidence of the enormous volume of material processed in the extraction of oil from shale. In this case the operating company was the Broxburn Oil Co, active from the 1860s to c. 1940.
Scheduled Monument Description
© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument consists of a large shale bing. The bing is a waste heap composed of residue from the destructive distillation of shale to extract oil. This process was the foundation of some of the earliest petro-chemical industries. The scheduled area is irregular in shape, about 920m from W of N to E of S by 580m from E to W, as marked in red on the accompanying map. All modern boundary walls and fences are excluded from this scheduling.