Publication Account
Date 1987
Event ID 1016843
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016843
Dysart became a burgh of barony in 1549 and the tolbooth appears to have been erected in 1576. It took the fonn of a square-plan tower-house with a stair-turret projecting from the north-east angle. Ten years later the tolbooth charter was deposited in the Kirk of Dysart. By 1606 the building was in need of major repairs and masons were consulted as to ways of providing an adequate prison. Taxes were imposed to meet the costs but the work does not appear to have been completed until 1617 and this date appears in a panel on the forestair built against the south side of the tower.
The upper part of the tower was reconstructed in the 18th century to provide an ashlar bell-chamber covered with an ogival roof in stone.
In the 1840s the 17th century prison was still in use and described as 'two rooms in Town House ... dry, but not very secure ... quite unsuitable as a prison'. The building was extended to the east in the 19th century.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Fife and Tayside’, (1987).
