Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Edinburgh, Leith, Tolbooth Wynd, Tolbooth

Tolbooth (16th Century)

Site Name Edinburgh, Leith, Tolbooth Wynd, Tolbooth

Classification Tolbooth (16th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Leith Jail; South Court House; St Anthonys Lane; Leith Tolbooth

Canmore ID 51967

Site Number NT27NE 5

NGR NT 2699 7633

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/51967

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

Toggle Aerial | View on large map

Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT27NE 5 2699 78633

(NT 2699 7633) Mercantile Marine Shipping Offices (NAT)

on the Site of (NAT)

Old Tolbooth (NR) 1563

OS 6"map, Edinburghshire, 1st ed., (1853)

These shipping offices were built on the site of the old Tolbooth, whose construction was authorised in 1563 and was completed in 1565. It was demolished in 1825.

Name Book 1852; RCAHMS 1951.

These shipping offices have now been demolished to make way for modern housing development.

Visited by OS (B S) 27 November 1975.

Activities

Publication Account (1951)

251. The Tolbooth of Leith.

Leith has been served at different periods by four Tolbooths. The first of these [NT27SE 110], which stood in Restalrig, was destroyed by the English in 1544. The second consisted of a small tower at the E. end of the King's Wark together with the first floor of the house adjoining the tower on the W. These premises were granted to the Baron of Restalrig by Marie de Guise-Lorraine (1), apparently as a makeshift to meet the immediate needs of the time. The construction of the third Tolbooth was authorised in 1563; (2) it was completed two years later (3), in Tolbooth Wynd, and it was demolished in 1823. The fourth was built in 1825 (4).

RCAHMS 1951

(1) Reg. Mag. Sig., 1513-1546, No. 3088. (2) B .R.,1557-1571, pp. 180 f. (3) Robertson, Sculptured Stones of Leith, pp. 54, 119, and pL. III. (4) Robertson, The Bailies of Leith, pp. 201 f.

Publication Account (1981)

South Leith's first tolbooth stood in Restalrig and has been sited at NT 2850 7451 (Ordnance Survey Record Cards, Reference NT 27 NE 11). This tolbooth was burned by Hertford in the 1540s and was not rebuilt. Many pleas to have the tolbooth rebuilt went unanswered until Mary Queen of Scots sent a strongly worded letter to Edinburgh magistrates in 1563, and within two years a new tolbooth was erected in Tolbooth Wynd. Soon after the demolition of Edinburgh's tolbooth in 1817 ‘doom was sealed on Leith's despite the protests of such noted antiquaries as Sir Walter Scott (Hutcheson, 1865, 172). The tolbooth of Queen Mary was replaced with common-place 1 mercantile shipping offices (Hutcheson, 1865, 172), which were demolished in November, 1975, to make way for a modern housing development.

Information from ‘Historic Edinburgh, Canongate and Leith: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).

Publication Account (1996)

A new tolbooth on the S side of Tolbooth Wynd was built by the inhabitants of Leith, with the support of Queen Mary, in 1564-5.

Queen Mary in 1564 directed the burgesses of Edinburgh to cease obstructing the efforts of the inhabitants of Leith 'to big and edifie oure hous of justice', and the new tolbooth prominently displayed her arms, with the date 1565. In the same year, however, the burgh of Edinburgh acquired the superiority of the port, and during the siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1571-3 the courts and councils of the Regents and of the burgh were held in Leith Tolbooth. The port became a burgh of barony in 1636 and continued to be governed by bailies appointed by the city magistrates. In 1715 a force led by Mackintosh of Borlum briefly occupied the town and liberated a number of Jacobite prisoners held in the tolbooth.

The building was demolished in 1824, despite the protests of Sir Waiter Scott and C K Sharpe, but its appearance is well known from early views. Its three storeys were divided by stepped string-courses, and it had a central pend leading to the fleshmarket that was installed at the rear in 1569. A forestair rose to a square-headed moulded doorway at the Wend, which was separated by two large windows from a three-bay oriel window with animal finials above its cornice. The royal armorial of 1565 was set at the centre of the second floor, which had small heavily-barred windows, and the parapet was crenellated.

The ground-floor vault was used for a guard-house from 1725, its entrance being in the forestair. The court-room occupied most of the first floor, and in 1817 there were also a small room and closet for the clerks, while the main prison accommodation was evidently on the second floor, from which prisoners escaped in that year to the roof. In 1665 South A new tolbooth on the S side of Tolbooth Wynd was built by the inhabitants of Leith, with the support of Queen Mary, in 1564-5.

Leith kirk-session complained of 'the naughtinesse of the bell that we have in the Tolbuith Steeple, that cannot be hearde be the halfe of the toun', and in 1678 it was reported that 'the top of the Tolbuith steeple of Leith the horolodge [clock] and cock are all rowinous and defective'. One view shows a gablet with a weather-cock at the wall-head above the oriel. The tolbooth was replaced in 1824 by a castellated jail, court-house and council-chambers designed by Thomas Brown, at a contract price of £2,000. The jail was never legalised, but the building was occupied by the town clerk, and by the new Leith town council from 1833 to 1849. It was then leased, and in 1868 sold, for commercial use, and was demolished in the 1960s.

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

References

MyCanmore Image Contributions


Contribute an Image

MyCanmore Text Contributions