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Easthouses
Easthouses had been a colliery village for hundreds of
years before the village of Newtongrange was built. The
Easthouses men were great exponents of quoiting (pronounced
'kiting') and cock fighting.
The Marquis of Lothian's Colliery School was at Easthouses
until 1849 when he built one at Newtongrange and there was
still an infant school in the village until well into this
century. Easthouses Drift mine was opened in 1910 and closed
in 1960. Throughout the nineteenth century the population
of the village fluctuated between three and four hundred
and it was not until 1924, when Bogwood housing scheme was
begun by the Lothian Coal Co., that the village expanded
much.
Easthouses has always retained its own identity despite
the nearness of Newtongrange on one side and the sprawling
modern housing scheme of Mayfield adjacent to the south.
Previously Easthouses had a Burns Club, a homing society,
its own gala day and a flower show. Easthouses Lily was
their junior football team and the Dean built them a pavilion
in 1911. In 1929 the football pitch was taken over to make
a Welfare Park land a new pitch was built at the other side
of the village, but it now lies unused and derelict.
The Easthouses professional games were famous before the
First World War and these were revived for a few years as
amateur games in the 1930s. An Institute was built with
Dean Tavern money in 1925 and the building is now a Miners'
Welfare Club with a licence. In 1934 a bowling green and
pavilion was built in the park. A public house, the Barley
Bree, opened in 1949.
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