IT is thought by many to be a sleepy commuter town and tourism centre, or just a stop on the Glasgow-Edinburgh main line, yet it was once the industrial heartland of Scotland.

Even many residents will be surprised to hear Linlithgow, birthplace of Star Trek’s fictional Scotty, was a powerhouse industry in medieval times.

Its exports made the town rich – they earned £700 per year in the 14th century – as Linlithgow became a major burgh after English annexation of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Linlithgow became a centre for leatherwork and tanning, with 24,000 pairs of shoes a year produced in the 1700s.

Evidence of Linlithgow’s past was first found by archaeologists 50 years ago, but only now has their work been fully analysed and published. Alder Archaeology Ltd, with support from Historic Scotland, has produced a new online resource drawing together archaeological dig reports and post-excavation analysis in the town dating back to the 1960s.

It shows Linlithgow was a thriving centre even before King James IV made it a royal centre with the building of the Palace whose ruin is now the burgh’s main tourist attraction.

His son James V, the father of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born there and the Queen favoured the town where she herself was born in 1542.

The online publication ARO16: Digging Linlithgow’s past: early urban archaeology on the High Street, 1966-1977 can be found at the website www.archaeologyreportsonline.com.

It says the burgh of Linlithgow is first recorded in the reign of David I (1124-53), who granted the “church of Linlidcu with chapels and lands inside the burgh and outside, and all rights pertaining to the foresaid church” to St Andrews Cathedral in 1140 or 1141. The burgh was in essence the long High Street, part of the route west from Edinburgh to Stirling and Glasgow, with the shorter Kirkgate leading north to the palace and parish church.

By the 15th century over three-quarters of its exports were wool. Hides were also a big export, and, later, cloth.

The report says: “The addition of the largest assemblage of antler waste ever found in a Scottish burgh from 326-332 High Street, excavated in 1973, confirms the remarkable concentration of animal-product industries in this part of Linlithgow ... The antler assemblage from Linlithgow includes evidence of craft working on a larger scale than previously found in excavations of medieval urban Scottish sites.”

The report adds: “By the end of the 18th century there were 17 tanners in the burgh processing some 20,000 skins and hides a year, 13 tawers (who made hides and skins into leather) processing up to 60,000 skins and hides a year, 18 curriers (who dressed and coloured tanned leather) as well as 100 shoemakers.”

Catherine Smith of Alder Archaeology, who compiled the publication, said: “The historic burgh of Linlithgow underwent an extensive programme of town centre redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s, affecting large and relatively undisturbed sites in highly significant locations.

“There was very little provision for urban archaeology in Scotland at that time, but the obvious importance of the sites prompted a series of responses from those working in the field, in some cases improvised with little or no resources.

“While there have been several subsequent excavations in Linlithgow, the excavations reported here were the first to examine significant areas in the heart of the medieval burgh.”