Publication Account

Date 1981

Event ID 1018231

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018231

The tolbooth at Forfar received an early mention in 1586, and four years later an instrument bound certain men to build and maintain in all time coming 'ane sufficient wardhous for prisonaries and keping of thame' (Reid, 1902, 103). The site now occupied by the Town and County Hall was in part at least occupied by the old tolbooth, but early in the 1780s, the magistrates decided that a new municipal building for the use of the town and county was required (Adam, 1967, 17). No final plan of this original Town and County Hall, designed by James Playfair of London, survives, but the external appearance of the building must have been substantially as it is today with the exception that the original cupola shaped roof, having proved not to be watertight, was removed in 1804 (Adam, 1967, 15). The reporter in the Statistical Account spoke of the Town and County Hall as having an agreeable effect, but the apartments for the prisoners were dark and dismal. Furthermore he asserted that 'the general utility of the whole fabric seems to have been sacrificed to the attainment of one large upper room for public benefit and amusement' (OSA, 1798, vi, 523).

Information from ‘Historic Forfar: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).