Publication Account

Date 1998

Event ID 1019138

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1019138

Dalkeith 's tolbooth (176- 180 High Street, also designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument) figures 12 & 21 .A, fronting the widened High Street, the site of the market place (see pp 66-9), is a visual reminder of the crucial role that the market held in Dalkeith 's past. It was in the tolbooth that market dues were collected and the public weigh-beam was housed. The present building was erected in the late seventeenth century, probably being reworked to some extent in the eighteenth century, and retains many of its original exterior features, although the frontage was probably refaced in the nineteenth century. The whole building underwent refurbishment in 1966. The panel above the doorway, inscribed with the elate 1648 and the arms of the earl of Buccleuch, is misleading. It was discovered in the grounds of Dalkeith Palace in the late eighteenth century, and only at that time placed on the tolbooth facade. The tolbooth also functioned as the town's court house, the court room on the first floor having a coffered ceiling. It was here, also, that the town's prison was housed. This consisted of a pit prison in the subterranean basement and an upper prison. Dalkeith's gibbet stood in front of the tolbooth, where the second last public hanging in Scotland took place in 1827.

Information from ‘Historic Dalkeith: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1998).