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Publication Account
Date 1981
Event ID 1018301
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018301
It is impossible to say when the first Tolbooth was built in the burgh. The ‘Pretorium Antiquum Burgi’ was one of the patrimonies of the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the parish church and the earliest extant document relating to the altar. is dated 1374 (GD 215/1822). The Tolbooth served as part of Cromwell's defences in the 1650s and after the Restoration compensation was granted to the burgh to build a new one. It was rebuilt in 1668-70 and was a three-storeyed structure with a stair tower and spire added later. A pitched slate roof replaced a flat one in 1790 and the Tolbooth suffered fire damage in 1845. The staircase that aderns the front of the building was not added until 1907 (MacDonald, 1932, 58). Sibbald, writing in 1710, observed that the Tolbooth was a ‘stately fabric' with the sheriffs and magistrates both keeping their courts in this building {1710, 15). The structure on the ground floor had accommodation for prisoners and a weighhouse while the top storey served 'for public feasts and entertainments (Sibbald, 1710, 15).
Information from ‘Historic Linlithgow: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).
