Kilmarnock
Tolbooth (18th Century)
Site Name Kilmarnock
Classification Tolbooth (18th Century)
Canmore ID 42784
Site Number NS43NW 11
NGR NS 4283 3797
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/42784
- Council East Ayrshire
- Parish Kilmarnock
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Kilmarnock And Loudoun
- Former County Ayrshire
NS43NW 11 4283 3797.
(NS 4283 3797) Kilmarnock tolbooth or town house stood a short distance west of the Cross, nearly opposite the Crown Hotel. A number of Covenanters were imprisoned here in 1667. It was probably erected about 1591, and was taken down about the beginning of the 19th century.
A McKay 1909; T Smellie 1898
No traces of this building exist.
Visited by OS (JLD) 8 August 1956
Publication Account (1981)
The tolbooth of Kilmarnock was situated west from the Cross. The eighteenth-century structure was apparently a gloomy looking L-shaped erection two storeys high and with a small bellhouse and shops on the ground floor (McKay, 1909, 105). The upstairs Hall or Court Room was reached by means of an outside stair. In the early eighteenth century there was only one apartment, used to house both male and female prisoners, but it was not until the year 1737 that the town council woke to the 'sundry inconveniences occasioned by there being only one prison' and agreed to erect a partition (Paterson, 1866, iii, 375). The tolbooth was taken down in 1805 and new municipal offices were erected on an arch spanning the river (Smellie,1898, iii).
Information from ‘Historic Kilmarnock: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).
