Crail, Marketgate. View from south west.

Description Crail, Marketgate. View from south west.

Date c. 1885

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 739244

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1915

Scope and Content Marketgate, Crail, Fife, looking south-east Marketgate, a broad thoroughfare that runs parallel to the shore, is one of Crail's oldest streets, and once formed one of the largest medieval market-places in Europe. The Scottish photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed Marketgate on a visit to Crail c.1885. The focal point of the street is the squat 18th-century tower of the tolbooth (town hall) which is crowned with a two-tiered slated pagoda-like roof. The lower part of the tower dates from the 16th century, and the two diminishing stages (the upper one with a clock) were added in 1776. The whitewashed, harled Golf Hotel (right), a former coaching inn, dates from the early 18th century. The tolbooth is a stolid landmark in the centre of the burgh that was built in the 16th century to serve the town as council chamber, courthouse, tax-office, guard-house and prison cells. In medieval times, permanent market stalls called luckenbooths were erected close to the building to accommodate those merchants, such as goldsmiths, whose wares were highly priced and easily stolen. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap