Canongate Tolbooth is a historic landmark of 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 ...

area 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 ...

, built in 1591 as a

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 esse ...

, that is, the centre of administration and justice of the then separate burgh of

the Canongate The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began w ...

which was outside the Edinburgh town walls. It ceased to be a municipal building in 1856 and it is now occupied by The People's Story Museum and is protected as a category A listed building.

History

The tower of the tolbooth was built in 1591, and the block to the east of it at that time or slightly after, by Sir Lewis Bellenden, baron of Broughton and feudal superior of the burgh of Canongate and

Lord Justice Clerk The Lord Justice Clerk is the second most senior judge in Scotland, after the Lord President of the Court of Session. Originally ''clericus justiciarie'' or Clerk to the Court of Justiciary, the counterpart in the criminal courts of the Lord ...

of Scotland. It served as the courthouse, burgh jail and meeting place of the town council. Many

Covenanters Covenanters ( gd, Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. The name is derived from '' Covena ...

were held in the tolbooth in poor conditions in the 17th century and a riot took place in the building in May 1692. It ceased to be the meeting place of the burgh council when Canongate was annexed by Edinburgh in 1856. In 1875 the City Architect,

Robert Morham Robert Morham (31 March 1839 – 5 June 1912) was the City Architect for Edinburgh for the last decades of the nineteenth century and was responsible for much of the “public face” of the city at the time. His work is particularly well re ...

, extensively restored and remodelled the exterior. Internally the first and attic floors were combined to make a single floor, now The People's Story Museum.

Design

The tolbooth was designed in the Scottish medieval style: it comprises a bell tower with a lower block to the east that contained the council chamber and courtroom. The tower has two

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from th ...

s with ornamental gunloops on either side of a clock, dated 1884 and manufactured by

James Ritchie & Son James Ritchie & Son are a firm of Clockmakers in Broxburn, West Lothian, Scotland. The company was established in 1809 and is Scotland's oldest turret clock manufacturer. The firm produces and maintains all sorts of clocks, including public clo ...

, which is suspended over 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), de ...

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...

brackets. Above the bartizans is a conical spire while at street level there is a round-arched pend that leads into Tolbooth Wynd. Architectural features of the east block include a stone forestair which leads to a door next to the tower, an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found projecting from an upper f ...

, and four pedimented

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable spac ...

s by Morham, based on Gordon of Rothiemay's map of 1647, that replaced three piended ones. To the east of the tolbooth, down the Royal Mile, is the

Kirk of the Canongate The Kirk of the Canongate, or Canongate Kirk, serves the Parish of Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town, in Scotland. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. The parish includes the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament. It ...

and the

Canongate Kirkyard The Canongate Kirkyard ( en, Churchyard) stands around Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. The churchyard was used for burials from the late 1680s until the mid-20th century. The most celebrated burials at the kirkyard are ...

References

{{Government buildings in Edinburgh Buildings and structures in Edinburgh Tourist attractions in Edinburgh Defunct prisons in Edinburgh Listed prison buildings in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Royal Mile 1591 establishments in Scotland