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Publication Account
Date 1996
Event ID 1017914
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017914
Situated on the W side of the High Street, the Weigh House stands on ground which falls steeply to the E bank of Ceres Bum, allowing the construction at the rear of an additional basement storey. The building is only one bay in length, but the N gable, which abuts the Inn, may have been rebuilt. Set against the S gable, and stepped down from it, there is a single-storey cottage with a re-used door-lintel inscribed' 17 AB MB 10'. The basement of the weigh-house, which intercommunicates with this cottage, was originally used as a prison, and the rear wall has a small window with iron bars.
The building is constructed of rubble with dressed margins, and measures some 3.7m across its main front by 6.9m. Its roof is slated and it has rebuilt gable chimney-stacks. Although simple in form, it has scrolled skewputts to its S gable and a carved panel over the doorway. This is inscribed: GOD BLESS THE JUST, and is carved with a set of scales having a weight on one side and a bale on the other. Fixed to the front wall to the N of the doorway there is a pair of jougs.
The skewputts of the S gable are matched by similar skewputts to the N gable of the Inn, wruch maintains the same wall-height. It is possible that the weigh-house and the Inn originally formed a single building. The weigh-house may be ascribed to the early 18th century, although Ceres was made a burgh of barony for the Hopes of Craighall in 1620.
Information from ‘Tolbooths and Town-Houses: Civic Architecture in Scotland to 1833’ (1996).
