The Old Tolbooth was an important municipal building in the city of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
for more than 400 years. The medieval structure, which was located at the northwest corner of
St Giles' Cathedral
St Giles' Cathedral ( gd, Cathair-eaglais Naomh Giles), or the High Kirk of Edinburgh, is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in the Old Town, Edinburgh, Old Town of Edinburgh. The current building was begun in the 14th century and extended ...
and was attached to the west end of the
Luckenbooths
The Luckenbooths were a range of tenements which formerly stood immediately to the north of St. Giles' Kirk in the High Street of Edinburgh from the reign of King James II in the 15th century to the early years of the 19th century. They were de ...
on the
High Street
High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...
in the
Old Town
In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...
, was first established in the 14th century by
royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
. Over the years it served a variety of purposes such as housing the
Burgh Council, early meetings of the
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...
and the
Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...
. The
Tolbooth
A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of three essen ...
was also the burgh's main
jail
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
where, in addition to incarceration,
physical punishment and
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
were routinely conducted. From 1785
public execution
A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. The purpose ...
s were carried out. In 1817 the buildings, which had been rebuilt and renovated several times, were demolished.
History
![Model of the Edinburgh Tolbooth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Model_of_the_Edinburgh_Tolbooth.jpg)
A deed in the
chartulary
A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll ('' rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the f ...
of St Giles' Cathedral indicates there was already a
pretorium (an earlier
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
term for a tolbooth) in Edinburgh as early as 1368. Following the burnings of Edinburgh by
Edward II of England
Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to ...
in 1323 and his son,
Edward III
Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...
, in 1335 during the
Wars of Scottish Independence
The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of ...
and again in 1385 when
Richard II of England
Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father die ...
burned the town, major rebuilding and improvements were required. In 1386,
Robert II granted Edinburgh a charter which gave the burgh an area of land by in the market place with licence to develop the site for the ornament and use of the city. The charter, written in Latin, was endorsed "Carta fundi de la Belhous" ( en, Charter of the site of the Belhous), signifying the purpose of the site for a new Belhouse, successor to the earlier pretorium, and may be translated:
Know ye, that we have given, granted, and by this our present charter have confirmed, to our beloved and faithful, the Burgesses and Community of Edinburgh, and their successors in time to come, 60 feet in length and 30 feet in breadth of land lying in the market place of the said burgh, on the north side of the street thereof; giving and granting to them, and their foresaid successors, our special license to construct and erect houses and buildings on the foresaid land, for the ornament of the said burgh, and for their necessary use.
There is no record of construction on the site but, on 3 October 1403, the earliest burgh record mentions the "Pretorio burgi" - the Pretorium of Edinburgh - for the first time. On 27 November 1438, during the reign of
James II, the
Estates of Parliament made its first use of the pretorio burgi of Edinburgh. Parliamentary records of 28 June 1451, by which time records were made in
Scots, see the first official use of the term tolbooth (or, strictly, tolbuith)
The bellhouse (or belhous) often had a
steeple
In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religi ...
or
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
that contained a civic bell, the ringing of which was used to regulate the business and civil matters of the burgh. In Edinburgh, the pretorium and belhous appear to have much the same meaning, being the burghal offices.
The land granted by the
Royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
was located just a few feet from the north-west corner of St Giles' Cathedral. The construction of the Tolbooth substantially reduced the width of the street at this point. A pattern of
setts
A sett, also known as a block or Belgian block, is a broadly rectangular quarried stone used in paving roads and walkways. Formerly in widespread use, particularly on steeper streets because setts provided horses' hooves with better grip tha ...
known as the
Heart of Midlothian currently mark the entrance to the original building.
![Door of the Edinburgh tolbooth, Abbotsford, Scottish Borders](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Door_of_the_Edinburgh_tolbooth%2C_Abbotsford%2C_Scottish_Borders.JPG)
By the reign of
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scot ...
the Tolbooth was in a chronic state of disrepair. On 2 February 1561, the queen ordered that it should be demolished and rebuilt. In response, the town council partitioned off the west end of St Giles' which was then used for meetings of Parliament and the
Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...
. At the same time, a building was constructed at the south-west corner of St Giles' Cathedral for sittings of the
Burgh Council. Confusingly, both were often called the New Tolbooth.
In 1571, a chronicle reports the tower of the Old Tolbooth was taken down ("the tour of the auld Tolbuyth was tane doun"). In 1632 the new building to the south was demolished.
In 1639, the Parliament of Scotland moved into the new
Parliament Hall which had been built by the Town Council of Edinburgh at its own expense. The Old Tolbooth remained in use by the Burgh council as a prison. In 1811 the council moved across the street to the north range of the Royal Exchange building which was termed the
City Chambers rather than the Tolbooth. This building had been built 1754-61 to a design by
John Adam of 1753.
The Old Tolbooth continued be used as a prison and place of execution until it was finally demolished in 1817.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...
featured the Old Tolbooth prominently in his work ''
The Heart of Midlothian
''The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' is the seventh of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. It was originally published in four volumes on 25 July 1818, under the title of '' Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series'', and the author was given as "Jedediah Cle ...
''. Published in 1818, the year after the demolition of the building, the book is set against the backdrop of the
Porteous Riots
The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of Captain John Porteous (c. 1695 – 1736), Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was lynched by a mob for his part in the killing of innocent civilians while ordering the men ...
in 1736. Scott attended the building’s demolition and obtained the iron entrance door to the Old Tolbooth's jail and its key and incorporated the door into his new mansion of
Abbotsford House
Abbotsford is a historic country house in the Scottish Borders, near Galashiels, on the south bank of the River Tweed. Now open to the public, it was built as the residence of historical novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott between 1817 and 1825 ...
near
Melrose in the
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...
.
Prison
![The 'Heart of Midlothian', High Street, Edinburgh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/The_%27Heart_of_Midlothian%27%2C_High_Street%2C_Edinburgh.jpg)
The Old Tolbooth was used as a
jail
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
where judicial torture was routinely carried out. From 1785 executions, which previously had taken place at the
Mercat Cross or the
Grassmarket
The Grassmarket is a historic market place, street and event space in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. In relation to the rest of the city it lies in a hollow, well below surrounding ground levels.
Location
The Grassmarket is located direct ...
, were carried out on the roof of a two-storey extension on the west side of the Old Tolbooth which provided a platform equipped with a
gallows
A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...
so that the public could view
hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...
s. Prisoners taken to the Old Tolbooth were tortured using implements such as the
boot
A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is cle ...
or
pilliwinks.
Jougs
The jougs, juggs, or joggs ( fro, joug, from Latin , a yoke) is a metal collar formerly used as an instrument of punishment in Scotland, the Netherlands and other countries.
Purpose
The jougs was an iron collar fastened by a short chain to a wa ...
were attached to the exterior of the building. These were iron collars for chaining up offenders in public view, like a
pillory
The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks ...
.
Spikes were also employed to exhibit body parts taken from executed prisoners. The heads of the most notorious were placed on "the prick of the highest stone": a spike on the Old Tolbooth's northern gable facing the High Street. For instance the
Regent Morton
James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton (c. 1516 – 2 June 1581, aged 65) was the last of the four regents of Scotland during the minority of King James VI. He was in some ways the most successful of the four, since he won the civil war that had b ...
's head was stuck there from 1581 for 18 months. The head of
Montrose was on view from 1650 to 1660 until replaced by the
Marquis of Argyll's head in 1661.
![Hall of the Old Tolbooth, c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Hall_of_the_Old_Tolbooth%2C_c.1795_EDI_CITY_CAC_1978_35.jpg)
Edinburgh's foremost 18th century historian,
Hugo Arnot
Hugo Arnot of Balcormo (8 December 1749 – 20 November 1786) was a Scottish advocate, writer, and campaigner.
Life
Arnot was born Hugo Pollock on 8 December 1749 in Leith, where his father was a merchant. He adopted his mother's maiden name, A ...
, wrote the following detailed description of the prison to expose the shocking conditions within.
The liberality and humanity of the English, in erecting so magnificent a building for a jail as Newgate
Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...
, deserve the highest applause. (...) The state of Edinburgh tolbooth is far otherwise. There the austerity of the law, and the rigour of an unfeeling creditor, may be gratified, in their utmost extent. In the heart of a great city, it is not accommodated with ventilators, with water-pipe, with privy. The filth collected in the jail is thrown into a hole within the house at the foot of a stair, which, it is pretended, communicates with a drain; but, if so, it is so compleatly chocked, as to serve no other purpose but that filling the jail with disagreeable stench. This is the more inexcusable, since, by making a drain to the north, over a very narrow street, such a declivity might be reached, that, with the help of water, of which there is command, the sewer might be kept perfectly clean. When we visited the jail there were confined in it about twenty-nine prisoners, partly debtors, partly delinquents; four or five were women, and there were five boys. Some of these had what is called ''the freedom of the prison'', that is, not being confined to a single apartment. As these people had the liberty of going up and down stairs, they kept their rooms tolerably clean swept. They had beds belonging to themselves; and in one room, we observed a pot on the fire. But, wherever we found the prisoners confined to one apartment, whether on account of their delinquencies, or that they were unable to pay for a little freedom, the rooms were destitute of all accommodation, and very nasty. All parts of the jail were kept in a slovenly condition; but the eastern quarter of it (although we had fortified ourselves against the stench), was intolerable. This consisted of three apartments, each above the other. In what length of time these rooms, and the stairs leading to them, could have collected the quantity of filth which we saw in them, we cannot determine. The undermost of these apartments was empty. In the second, which is called the ''iron room'', which is destined for those who have received sentence of death, there were three boys: one of them might have been about fourteen, the others about twelve years of age. They had been confined about three weeks for thievish practices. In the corner of the room, we saw; shoved together, a quantity of dust, rags, and straw, the refuse of a long succession of criminals. The straw had been originally put into the room for them to lie upon, but had been suffered to remain till, worn by successive convicts, it was chopped into bits of two inches long. From this, we went to the apartment above, where were two miserable boys, not twelve years of age. But there we had no leisure for observation; for, no sooner was the door opened, than such an insufferable stench assailed us, from the stagnant and putrid air of the room, as, notwithstanding our precautions, utterly to overpower us.[H Arnot, The History of Edinburgh (1799), reprinted Edinburgh 1988, pp.173-4]
Famous inmates held in the Old Tolbooth
Other Tolbooths in Edinburgh
Due to enlargement of the city Edinburgh now encompasses other tolbooths or tolbooth sites. Still in existence are
Canongate Tolbooth
Canongate Tolbooth is a historic landmark of the Old Town area of Edinburgh, built in 1591 as a tolbooth, that is, the centre of administration and justice of the then separate burgh of the Canongate which was outside the Edinburgh town walls. ...
on the lower section of the
Royal Mile
The Royal Mile () is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's ''Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century'' (1901), des ...
,
South Queensferry Tolbooth and the tolbooth in
Dean Village
Dean Village (from ''dene'', meaning 'deep valley') is a former village immediately northwest of the city centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is bounded by Belford Road to the south and west, Belgrave Crescent Gardens to the north and below the ...
.
Leith
Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world.
The earliest ...
, the port for Edinburgh had its own tolbooth, located on what is still called Tolbooth Wynd. The baronies of
Broughton and
Restalrig
Restalrig () is a small residential suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland (historically, an estate and independent parish).
It is located east of the city centre, west of Craigentinny and to the east of Lochend, both of which it overlaps. Restalrig ...
also had tolbooths.
References
Sources
*Skelton, Douglas. ''Dark Heart, tales from Edinburgh's town jail.'' Mainstream, Edinburgh 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh
Buildings and structures completed in 1400
Demolished buildings and structures in Scotland
Parliament of Scotland
1817 disestablishments
Defunct prisons in Edinburgh
Execution sites in Scotland
Royal Mile
14th century in Scotland
Buildings and structures in Edinburgh
Government buildings in Edinburgh
History of Edinburgh
Political history of Scotland
Politics of Edinburgh
Court of Session
Court buildings in Scotland
Torture in Scotland
Judicial torture in Scotland
Scottish parliamentary locations and buildings
Buildings and structures demolished in 1817