The Pyramids are a land sculpture alongside the M8 motorway at

Bathgate Bathgate ( sco, Bathket or , gd, Both Chèit) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Armadale, West Lothian, Armadale, Blackburn, ...

. Originally named the "Sawtooth Ramps", it was sponsored by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

and formed part of the M8 Art Project. The sculpture was created by artist Patricia Leighton in 1993. It is long and consists of seven high ramps made of earth and seeded with grass. The artist based the design on local geographic features (

drumlin A drumlin, from the Irish word ''droimnín'' ("littlest ridge"), first recorded in 1833, in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidate ...

s) and the shape of the surrounding bings. Sheep are grazed on the structure which keeps the grass short. The pyramidal shape of the sculpture gave rise to the name of the nearby Pyramids Business Park.

Coloured sheep

In April 2007, a local farmer painted the sheep which graze on the grass mounds bright red with a harmless sheep spray. Over the years the sheep have been painted different colours to raise awareness of charities: pink for

Breast Cancer Research Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a r ...

, and purple for World Autism Awareness Month by

Scottish Autism Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

in April 2015.

Giant poppies

Giant poppies have been painted on the grass ramps in November for a number of years. This is organised by

Poppyscotland The Earl Haig Fund Scotland, trading as poppyscotland, is a Scottish charity for veterans of the British Armed Forces and their dependants. It was founded in 1921 by Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig as part of the broader British Haig Fund. Its ma ...

as part of the

Remembrance Day Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in t ...

commemorations and fund-raising. In 2015, the extremist political group

Siol nan Gaidheal Siol nan Gaidheal (, meaning "Seed of the Gaels") is a minor Scottish ultranationalist and ethnic nationalist group which describes itself as a "cultural and fraternal organisation". The first incarnation of the group was founded by Tom Moore in ...

painted their white poppy logo on one of the ramps, which was condemned as vandalism and a political stunt by

Angela Constance Angela Constance (born 15 July 1970) is a Scottish politician serving as Minister for Drug Policy since 2020, having previously served in the Scottish Cabinet from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the M ...

, a local MSP.

References

{{coord, 55.8911, -3.6048, region:GB_type:landmark, format=dms, display=title Buildings and structures in West Lothian Bathgate