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 were built in the
park. A public house, the Barley Bree, opened in 1949.