Publication Account

Date 1982

Event ID 1018227

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018227

The site of the first tolbooth of Peterhead is unclear. It was built sometime between 1593 and 1623 on land gifted by the Earl Marischal. J.T. Findlay asserted that the tolbooth stood in the Longate facing Brook Lane looking towards the harbour (1933, 61). When plague struck the burgh in 1645, this tolbooth was commandeered as a hospital, and once the emergency passed, was with all its contents set on fire (Neish, 1950, 66). Peterhead's second tolbooth was not erected until 1661-1665. A reason for the delay could be that the towns superior, the Earl Marischal, spent much of the Cromwellian era in the Tower of London for his loyalty to Charles I and Charles II. This second tolbooth stood on a sandy hillock bounded on the south by Narrow Lane, Tolbooth Wynd and Threadneedle Street (Neish, 1950, 2). A third municipal structure was erected on an adjacent site in 1788. Built of local granite, the town house was marked by a 125 foot spire containing both a bell and clock and a telescope for viewing the countryside and sea (Buchan, 1819~ 103). The lower floor was used as a market place (Buchan, 1819, 103), and went unpaved until 1822 (Neish, 1950, 71), while the first floor was set apart as a school and the town council used the upper storeys.

Information from ‘Historic Peterhead: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1982).