View of front of building, with jougs to right of door.

Description View of front of building, with jougs to right of door.

Date 1889

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

Catalogue Number SC 747776

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1899

Scope and Content Weigh-house, Ceres, Fife (now part of Fife Folk Museum) Ceres, a pretty village that developed as a small rural burgh of barony in 1620, lies south of Cupar in the heart of Fife's rich agricultural farmland. The old village weigh-house, dating from the early 18th century, was photographed in 1889 by Erskine Beveridge. This small, single-storeyed, rubble-built building has a low door approached by three stone steps, and a long, single window. Both door and window are boarded up. The roof is of stone slate, and the sloping stones which top the south gable wall (left) end in a splendid scrolled skewput. The carved panel above the door depicts a set of scales, with a weight on one side and a bale on the other, and is inscribed: 'God Bless the Just'. Fixed to the right of the door is a set of 'jougs', an iron collar attached to a short chain that was used as a form of punishment. The weigh-house was used for storing the standard weights and measures that each burgh kept for local use. The building may have been originally built as part of a larger tolbooth, or even served as the tolbooth itself. The basement was certainly used as the local prison, and has a small window with iron bars in its rear wall. The 'jougs' were used as a form of punishment for relatively minor offences such as drunkenness, swearing or failing to attend church on a Sunday. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap