William Symington lived at Westquarter in 1806 and 1807. His son John died there on 1 June 1807. Situated one and a half miles to the east of Falkirk, West Quarter had been the estate of the Earl of Linlithgow. The Westquarter Old Mansion was likened to a Normandy chateau. ^[1] The mansion was a plain mid-seventeenth century construction of considerable size, with steep roofs and notched gables, situated on the east bank of a steep wooded glen above the West Quarter burn. The mansion was demolished in the last century and has been consumed by a housing development. The tranquil shaded glen survives, probably little changed from Symington's time. The only original structure to survive is the dovecot which bears the date 1647 and the initials SWL and DWL, for Sir William and Dame Helenore Livingstone. Admiral Sir Thomas Livingstone was the laird of Westquarter when William Symington was living on the estate.

The West Quarter mansion was in a most attractive setting, overlooking a deep wooded glen. In 1868, Gillespie wrote:

“The great charm of Westquarter is its lovely glen, situated immediately west of the garden. The chief cascades are the Lanton Linn and the Lady’s Linn."

Spanning the swirling stream were a couple of rustic bridges and from those platforms there was a glorious view of the thickly-wooded dell and its linns. ^[2]

^[1] Nimmo

^[2] Gillespie, Robert, Round About Falkirk 1868

In 1804, William Symington leased a coal field from William Forbes of Callendar. The coal field was at Pirley, on the West Quarter burn, to the south of the Callendar Estate. During the course of 1806, William Symington moved from Park house, Falkirk to the Westquarter estate where Forbes was his immediate neighbor at Callendar House.

John Symington, his eleven year old son, died at Westquarter on 1^st June 1807. He was buried in the nearby Old Polmont churchyard without a headstone.