Blast from the Past
 

Between 1818 and 1830 John Boyd was Provost of Linlithgow and it is his property which is marked on John Wood’s 1820 map of the burgh.

 
An 1847 invoice shows it belonging to James Burleigh who, in addition to running the “Star and Garter Hotel”, also hired out Gigs, Droskies (low, four-wheeled carriages), Job and Post Horses.

Some of the steeds would have been used to pull the Edinburgh to Linlithgow Post Chaise which would use the Star and Garter as a coaching inn. One of these stage coaches has been renovated and now lives in Kentucky!

Whitten Lane is named after the town’s benefactor

The horses would be stabled in the area to the east of the building, where the small car park now exists. Members of the hunt would receive a “Meet Card” such as this one

The horses would be brought by train from Haymarket and Ratho Stations and unloaded in the goods yard at Linlithgow Station. The stirrup cup would be drunk in front of ‘The Star’ before pursuing the fox in the Bathgate Hills: a practice now forbidden and condemned to the history books.

Marches Programme advert, 1954

Linlithgow Band in 1891 at the Star and Garter. Note the ‘heraldic’ lamp bearing the Star’s emblems- the motifs of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.