Charity: Almond Valley Heritage Trust

The story of Almond Valley begins in the late 1960's with a campaign to save the historic buildings of Livingston Mill from demolition. A volunteer group won the support of the new town development corporation, and over the course of a decade worked to restore the derelict watermill and farm-steading. Members of the local community then established a city farm on the site, and a little later, one of the outbuildings became home for the Livingston Oil Museum. In 1990 the Almond Valley Heritage Trust was created to take forward these diverse interests. Ever since, we've continually extended the attractions and facilities of the site, exploring new activities, and developing new services. As a social enterprise, we've built a sustainable business that involves and serves both our visitors and the wider community. We've ambitious plans for continued progress. As an accredited museum, Almond Valley works to provides a local museum service for those areas shaped by the shale oil industry, and represents the national importance of Scotland's shale oil industry. Our shale oil industry collection is recognised as being of National Significance, and a vigorous programme of research and digitisation enables knowledge of Scotland's shale oil industry to be shared internationally through our scottishshale website Almond Valley holds particular appeal to families with young children, who have an immediate affinity with the farm animals and run wild in the green spaces and play facilities. We aim to be a happy carefree place that can be enjoyed by all of the family, and hope that the experiences shared will inform, inspire and be reflected upon. This gentle approach to learning links and underlies everything that we do.