Page 18 - 375457 NLP263064 BB Magazine (April Issue 97)

History to Hide the Hoarding
For far too long, the High Street has
been blighted by the unsightly grey-painted hoarding at the Victoria Hall gap site. The Scottish climate has now played its part and much of the plywood is coming apart. With
no early prospect of development of the site, Linlithgow Civic Trust is planning a significant improvement to the hoarding’s appearance which will also prevent further deterioration.
A line of printed panels of durable composite material – each 2.4 metres wide by 1.2 metres high - will be mounted along the length of the hoarding, centred at eye level, to mask the peeling laminations. Behind these panels a protective capping will prevent any further rainwater damage to the plywood sheets.
So – what will these panels depict?
The original idea was a series of monochrome images including an old map of the High Street, an even older plan of the Palace and several pen and ink drawings of significant Linlithgow buildings - mostly sketched by Ron Smith, Convenor of Burgh Beautiful – all keyed to the town’s Heritage Trail.
However, Evelyn Noble of One Linlithgow then suggested black and white photographs of short sections of the Linlithgow Embroideries, lovingly hand-stitched by Christine Anderson during the Covid lockdown, which capture the buildings of the High Street as they were in the late 1950s. The panels will feature a significant building within a short section of the streetscape brought to life by a relevant anecdote - taken from Linlithgow Museum’s Oral History project
which is collecting the memories of the town’s senior residents.
It is hoped to obtain much of the necessary funds for this project from the Linlithgow and Linlithgow Bridge Town Management Group. These two alternative proposals were put to their meeting
at the end of March when the Embroidery based design was selected. The Trust is now in process of fully costing the works to present at the Group’s next meeting at the end of this month.
Linlithgow Civic Trust
18 BLACK BITCH ISSUE 97 APRIL 2023