Canongate Tolbooth
Canongate Tolbooth is a historic landmark of the Old Town section of Edinburgh built in 1591 as a tolbooth, that is, a courthouse, burgh jail and meeting place, for the then separate burgh of the Canongate. The building is now occupied by The People's Story Museum and is protected as a category A listed building.[1]
Contents
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, justice-clerk and feudal superior of the then independent Burgh of Canongate.[1][2] It served as the administrative centre for burgh which was outside the Edinburgh town walls, acting as courthouse, burgh jail and meeting place of the town council.[1]
In 1875 the City Architect, Robert Morham completely restored and remodelled the exterior giving it back its medieval look (based on Gordon of Rothiemay's map of 1647).[3] The first and attic floors were combined to make a single floor, now the The People's Story Museum.[3][4]
Design
The Tolbooth is made up of a central tower, with a block to the east that contained Council chamber.[5] Against the eastern block is a stone forestair which leads to a door next to the tower.[5] There is an oriel window in the eastern end of the east block.[2] Under the main tower is an arch that leads into Tolbooth Wynd.[6]
The tower has two bartizans with ornamental gunloops on either side of a clock, dated 1884, which is suspended over the Royal Mile by wrought iron brackets.[2][3] Above the bartizans and gunloops is a conical spire, and four pedimented dormers by Morham that replaced three piended ones.[3]
To the east of the tolbooth, down the Royal Mile, is the Kirk of the Canongate and the Canongate Kirkyard.[6]
References
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