Peterhead, Broad Street, Town House

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).

This town-house was built to John Baxter's designs in 1788 and its 38m-high spire remains one of the most impressive architectural landmarks in Peterhead. It is situated at the highest point of the town, on a corner-site between Marischal Street and Tolbooth Wynd, and faces E down Broad Street, the former market-area. It was originally rectangular on plan, measuring 20m by 17.1 m, but a projecting porch and enclosed stair were added in 1881 to its main (E) front. It is constructed of dressed local grey-brown granite, and the roof is hipped and slated.

The main front is of five bays, with an advanced and pedimented three-bay centrepiece to which the pedimented staircase-porch is attached. The ground-floor windows in the main and S fronts are round-headed and occupy an original open arcade, while the first-floor openings of the main and N fronts have entablatures. The end-walls are of two bays, but the former arcade to the N has been replaced by a shop-front. Above it, however, there is a central round-headed niche, and at second-floor level an unattached pediment. Surmounting the moulded main pediment, which bears the date 1788, there is a three-stage steeple rising from a square base. Its clockstage has pedimented faces stepped in at the angles, and carries an octagonal belfry with a round-headed louvred opening in each face. The spire is also octagonal, and is decorated with three bands of oval vents.

In the original arrangement the ground storey was used as a market, subsequently divided into shops, while the first floor housed two school-rooms, and the second floor contained 'two elegant halls, and an anti-room, which are used on public occasions'. Two large rooms how occupy the side-bays of the ground storey, divided by a square vaulted cell in the base of the steeple and a room of similar size to the rear. Except for the cell or 'black hole', which was in disuse some time before 1836, this floor has undergone extensive modem alterations. At first-floor level the central block houses a semi-circular stair and flagged landing, and a square room to the rear. This room originally had access to both principal rooms, but this uninterrupted circulation is restricted by later partitions. The second floor was of similar layout, and the N room retains a coombed ceiling, but the S room has been subdivided. The steeple houses a belllm in diameter, which was recast by G Mears of London in 1858. A bell from the previous tolbooth, cast in 1725 by Robert Maxwell, Edinburgh, for the exiled Earl Marischal, is in the collection of Arbuthnott Museum.

HISTORY

A tolbooth was probably built some time after 1593, when the local feuars gave an undertaking to their landlord, the Earl Marischal, to erect one as soon as their numbers and funds permitted. This building is believed to have stood near the harbour, and to have been abandoned after use as a plague hospital in the 1640s. It was replaced, perhaps in the 1660s, by a building on the present site which comprised a two-storeyed rectangular block with a circular tower abutting one angle. It was altered in 1759 to improve its prison-accommodation, and was demolished c, 1786 to make way for the present building.

The new town-house was 'built from a plan of Mr. (John) Baxter, architect', for the Community ofFeuars of Peterhead, who still own it. They donated the site and contributed to the public subscription for its cost, which amounted to £2,000. Although the dated pediment shows that work was well advanced by 1788, the interior was not completed unti I 1812-13, when doors and firep laces and the hand-rails ofthe staircase were fitted. A two-storeyed building erected in 1832 in Marischal Street, adjoining the NW angle of the townhouse, provided market-space, a temporary holding-cell, and a witness-room. In 1841 the S first-floor room in the townhouse was partitioned to provide rooms for the sheriff substitute and his clerk. The original straight forestair was in disrepair by 1843, and was rebuilt with a double flight in 1859. In 1881 the contractor William Stuart built the present enclosed staircase at the centre of the main front and carried out alterations to the ground floor, at a cost of £572.

Information from ‘Tolbooths and Town-Houses: Civic Architecture in Scotland to 1833’ (1996).