Haddington, Tolbooth

An early reference to the Tolbooth occurs in 1425 (HTC Records, n. d., i, 19). References to its repair include a 1571 notice of 'the drawbrig of the tolbuith to be reparit, biggit and mendit in all necassaris with all diligens' (HTC Records, n. d., ii, 143). Reference to the drawbridge of the Tolbooth occurs again in 1658 (HTC Records, n .d., v, 39). In 1682 because of the large number of prisoners escaping from the structure the Town Council thought fit to hire 'some young, able, qualified and substantial man' as jailer (HTC Records, n. d., vi, 3). By 1732 the Tolbooth was ruinous and the Town Council meetings were transferred to the towns' library, while the steeple, town clock and great bell were taken down for safety (HTC Records, n.d,, vi, 247) . A newTown House was begun in 1748. The building had accommodation for the sheriff court and Town Council while the ground floor held prisoners. The Assembly Rooms were added to the Town House in 1788 and were built on pillars so that a market for grain could be held beneath. This market was ultimately abandoned (Gray, 1944, 140). The steeple dates from the early 1830s and the whole building underwent renovation in 1956.

Information from ‘Historic Haddington: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1978).

The spire of the town-house, 46m in height, dominates the W approach to Haddington, and the centre of the burgh. Its show-front looks W along Court Street and its E front, with the steeple, opens on to an alley, Jail Wynd, which divides it from the narrow block of property between High Street and Market Street.

The town-house is T-shaped on plan, with a two-storeyed W block of 1788 which measures 17.5m from E to W by II m and includes an assembly-room on the first floor. The E block, 18.2m from N to S by 12.2m, replaced a town-house of similar scale which was designed by William Adam in 1742. Its S and N divisions were rebuilt, to contain respectively three and two storeys, in 1823-5 and 1855-6,2 and the central steeple was replaced in 1830-1 by one designed by Gillespie Graham. The various parts are constructed of sandstone ashlar and coursed rubble, with random rubble in the E face of the SE block.

The W block has three-bay elevations in the Nand S walls. The ground-floor openings occupy infilled segmental-headed arches, and at first-floor level there are tall windows with moulded surrounds. The pedimented W front is framed by paired Tuscan pilasters which rise from slightly projecting plinths banded by a string-course. At ground-floor level there is a segmental-headed three-light window, and at first-floor level a large Venetian window above a balustradeq apron. The pediment and its flanking plinth-walls are surmounted by urns.

The three-storeyed SE block of 1823-5, which was designed by William Burn, is of three bays to the S and two to the E, and has a double-hipped roof. Its angles are marked by panelled pilasters and the ground-floor windows have segmental heads. The first-floor windows resemble those of the W block, and those of the low second floor are square. The NE block of 1855-6 is of two low storeys and is also three bays in width, with simple windows and a hipped roof.

The six-stage steeple, which projects slightly at the centre of the E front, has round-headed windows in the three lower stages of its E face, above a modern doorway. The dials of the clock-stage, which is set above a bold cornice, are framed by paired Tuscan pilasters carrying moulded pediments. The belfry-stage is octagonal, with round-headed louvred openings set between attached Tuscan columns and surmounted by a heavy cornice. The spire is also octagonal and is slightly concave above a stepped base.

It was originally intended that the ground floor of the W block of 1788 should be reserved for a grain-market, but when work was far advanced it was decided to infill the two W bays to provide a sheriff court-room in the send and two record-rooms, for burgh and county use, to the E. A blank wall separated these rooms from the W bay, which remained an open pend, used by sedan-chairs and carriages, and opened to a central vestibule and stair in the town-house. This lay-out is shown on plans of 1941, and may have survived until the alterations of 1953-6 by the architect Peter Whiston. At this time the arches of the pend were infilled and a circular neo-Georgian vestibule installed in it, and the rooms to the W were combined to form a council-chamber. The assembly-room occupies the whole of the first floor, as it probably did from the beginning. Its plaster frieze, with fan-vaulted arches enclosing swags, was renewed in 1956 from original sections, but the arcaded plasterwork in the arch-head of the Venetian window has been removed. The cantilevered musicians' gallery or 'fiddle box' above the doorway was also renovated in 1956.

William Adam's town-house included a central vestibule leading to a stair in the steeple, and was 'vaulted in the south end of the ground story for criminals', while the N end included a guard-house, and subsequently also ajailer's house. On the first floor there was a council-chamber and a sheriff court. These arrangements were retained in the successive rebuildings described above, except for the removal of the sheriff-court in 1788. The heightening of the SE block in 1823-5 provided additional prison-space, and three groundfloor cells were retained there until the 1940s. The central vestibule, whose massive walls may survive from Adam's building, gives access from the W block to a scale-and-platt stair in Graham's steeple, but otherwise the whole building has been much altered in 1953-6 and again in the 1970s.

On the lower stair-landing there stands an iron-bound wooden document-chest, 0.93m in length and 0.5m high. The town clock was repaired in 1531 , but the present one was made by James Clark, Edinburgh, in 1832. The steeple also contains four bells, of which the oldest, 0.48m in diameter, has an ornamented frieze and is inscribed: JAN BURGERHUYS ME FECIT 1604. The 'Great Bell ', 0.8m in diameter, was cast by John Meikle, Edinburgh, in 1700 to replace an earlier bell," and was again recast by John C Wilson, Glasgow, in 1879. The two others, of 0.6m and 0.72m in diameter, were cast by Thomas Mears, London, in 1831 . A converted hand-bell in North Berwick Museum, 0.21m in diameter, bears the inscription: HADINOTOVN A(NN)O 1669 P OSTENS. Below the name of the burgh there is a plaque bearing its emblem, a goat, and this is presumably ' the hand bell of this burgh' which was recast at Rotterdam in that year, at a cost of £18 11s 8d Scots.

HISTORY

The first surviving reference to a tolbooth at Haddington is in 1426.' It is believed to have been situated in Market Street facing Newton Port, about 120m E of the present site. In 1572, and again in 1658, the 'drawbrig' of the tolbooth was said to be in need of repair, and in 1683 there was mention of 'the turnpike to the Bartizane', where the bells and clocks were kept. In 1692 the common good of the burgh was reported as being exhausted 'by reason of the many publict works ... such as the repairing the roof of the tolbooth, building a new roofto the steeple, and covering the samen with lead' .'

By 1732 the tolbooth was so ruinous that council meetings were held in the library, and in 1740 it was described as 'in danger of falling'. It was resolved that it should be partially demolished, and the clock and bells were removed from the steeple and stored in the 'wester vault'. With the help of the gentlemen of the county a subscription was raised, and in 1742 a contract was made with two local tradesmen to 'build and erect in good and sufficient work a town house and tolbooth', to a design by William Adam. The contract price was to be £500, and masonry from the previous tolbooth was to be reused in its construction. Several loans had to be obtained to pay the contractors, but the new building was in use by 1744, and was completed in the following year. It was decided to add 'a battlement with Balisters' round the steeple, which was later described as being ' in the old Dutch round style'. The prison-accommodation proved inadequate, and at various times attempts were made to make it more secure by adding partitions and dividing walls.

In 1774 a request was made to the town council by the 'gentlemen of the county' to build an assembly-room, and it was decided to build on 'waste ground' belonging to the burgh immediately W of the town-house. When work began in 1788 the town contributed the site and gave twenty-five guineas on condition that 'a good prison room' was built 'over the present Burgher room' . The proposal to reserve the arcaded ground floor for the market was abandoned 'owing to the great increase of the barley and oat market', and this allowed the creation of two record-rooms which had long been required. The architect of the assembly-block is not recorded, but it has been ascribed to the local builder-architect James Burn.

In 1823 the county complained of the inadequacy of the jail, and it was agreed to heighten the side walls of the S block to provide four or five aditional rooms, to a plan by William Burn. Local contractors were employed, and it was decided to extend the block 0.9m to the E 'to lengthen the council room '. In 1830 the council considered 'the great disrepair of the town clock and the delapidated appearance of the steeple'. Various plans for a new spire or steeple were submitted, and they concluded 'that a spire according to a drawing by Mr Gillespie Graham would be highly ornamental and suitable for the situation'. Graham quickly produced a revised plan and specification and the contract was awarded to James McWatt. It proved necessary to dismantle the old steeple to its foundations 'in consequence of the insufficient state of the building', and an extra £40 was added to the original contract price of 'above £1,000' for making the front of 'hewn work' or ashlar.

In 1837 there were eleven rooms 'connected with the townhouse' and used as prison-cells, but a new prison was opened ten years later, although some lock-up space was retained. The sheriff-court also moved to a new building, in 1832, and the room below the assembly-room was later used as a reading-room. By 1854 the surviving N block of William Adam's building was ruinous, and although its enlargement to the same weight as the S block was discussed, it was rebuilt in a modest style in 1855-6.

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