Peterhead Tolbooth
Tolbooth (16th Century)
Site Name Peterhead Tolbooth
Classification Tolbooth (16th Century)
Canmore ID 21194
Site Number NK14NW 20
NGR NK 1347 4638
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/21194
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Peterhead
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Banff And Buchan
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NK14NW 20 1347 4638
See also NK14NW 14 and NK14NW 16.
The tolbooth of Peterhead is first mentioned in the feu contract of 1593 when the feuars are required 'to contribute proportionally to the building of a tolbooth within the said burgh'. It is not certain, however, at what date this building was erected, but it may be tentatively assigned to the period between 1593 and 1623, the latter being the year in which George, Earl Marishcal died. The site was given by the earl, but there is no documentary evidence to indicate its precise situation. Traditionally, among the inhabitants of Ronhead, it stood at the corner of Brook Lane and Longate. As a result of the use of the building in the plague out break of 1645, it was subsequently burnt. The superstition attending this disease led to the total abandonment of the site of the plague hospital (NK14NW 16) for about 100 years, and it is therefore curious that charter evidence reveals a house built on the reputed site of the tolbooth in 1659, and casts doubt on the authenticity of its location. The site is now built over.
J T Findlay 1933; R Neish 1950; A T Simpson and S Stevenson, 1982.
Publication Account (1982)
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).
