Publication Account
Date 2000
Event ID 1018309
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018309
Linlithgow's townhouse figure 17, fronting onto the market place at the foot of Kirkgate, was constructed in 1668- 70 by John Smith, to a design of John Milne, master mason to Kings Charles I and II. It stands on the site of the old tolbooth, demolished on the instructions of Oliver Cromwell. With a double staircase giving access to the first floor and a spire added in about 1673, its original form may be seen prominently on Slezer's engravings of Linlithgow in Theatrum Scotiae figure 16. This new tolbooth reduced the width of Kirkgate by approximately eight feet (2.4 metres). The interior was embellished with paintings by a Dutchman, who was paid £6 7s 7d for his efforts, and in 1670/71 two clocks were made, one for the tolbooth steeple and the other for the church steeple.
In 1790, it was agreed that a corn and victual market was to be erected at the back of the council chambers; the third storey functioned as a debtors' prison. Other alterations were soon made. In 1810, the town council took the decision to replace the stairs at the front of the townhouse with a verandah, or piazza. Fire broke out in 184 7, however, destroying much of the fabric, even though the town's 'water engine', or fire engine, was housed immediately adjacently, beside the county hall at the rear of the townhouse. According to the town council minutes, the fire was suspected to have been caused by the concentrated rays of the sun through a window leading to 'spontaneous combustion'. The following year, rebuilding was under way, but instead of following the Milne design of 1668, the facade was still furnished with a wrought iron piazza and the tapering spire was not replaced. The townhouse retains most of these nineteenth-century features, although the wrought iron piazza was replaced in 1907 with the existing double stairway; and the County Hall was added to the rear.
Information from ‘Historic Linlithgow: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (2000).
