Elgin Tolbooth

Nothing appears to be known of the town house or tollbooth during the middle ages. But it is clear that its site in the midst of the High Street and close to the parish church was a cramped and unsatisfactory one. Its principal early feature, which survived various reconstructions was a large square tower, 'almost without any windows'. The building contained a hall where burgh courts and county meetings were held, and a common jail (Shaw and Gordon, 1882, i, 356). Both the jail and the hall seem to have been inadequate, since there is record of a prisoner escaping in 1541 by taking off the lock of his prison; and the burgh court was held at various points during the later sixteenth century both in the parish church and within the former Greyfriars monastery (Mackintosh, 1914, 194).

Information from ‘Historic Elgin: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1982)