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Musselburgh Tolbooth

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Coordinates: 55°56′35″N 3°02′55″W / 55.9431°N 3.0487°W / 55.9431; -3.0487
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Musselburgh Tolbooth
Musselburgh Tolbooth (on the left of the image) and (on the right, at right angles to the tolbooth) Musselburgh Town House
LocationHigh Street, Musselburgh
Coordinates55°56′35″N 3°02′55″W / 55.9431°N 3.0487°W / 55.9431; -3.0487
Built1590
Architectural style(s)Scottish medieval style
Listed Building – Category A
Official nameHigh Street Tolbooth
Designated22 January 1971
Reference no.LB38309
Listed Building – Category A
Official nameTown House
Designated22 January 1971
Reference no.LB38308
Musselburgh Tolbooth is located in East Lothian
Musselburgh Tolbooth
Shown in East Lothian

Musselburgh Tolbooth is a municipal building in the High Street in Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland. The tolbooth, which was the headquarters of Musselburgh Burgh Council, is a Category A listed building.[1] At right angles and attached to it is the Musselburgh Town House.[2]

History

Plaque commemorating the centenary of the death of the novelist, Sir Walter Scott

The first building on the site was a 15th century tolbooth which was destroyed by Lord Hertford during the burning of Edinburgh in May 1544.[3] It featured a clock tower with a tiered octagonal belfry and steeple: the clock had been given to the burgh by Dutch merchants in 1496.[4]

The current structure, which was designed in the Scottish medieval style and built with ashlar stone,[a] was completed in 1590.[6][7] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto the High Street; there was a square tower at the southwest corner which featured an arched doorway on the ground floor, a window with a hood mould on the first floor and then a tall main section, which was constructed in rubble masonry and surmounted with the tiered octagonal belfry and steeple which had been recovered from the first tollbooth.[1] The section to the right on the tower featured a wide pend and three small windows on the ground floor, three small but more widely-spaced windows on the first floor and, above a heavily modillioned cornice, five small windows on the second floor.[1] Internally, the ground floor was allocated for market use and the first floor allocated for prison use from an early stage.[3] The tolbooth was the venue for several witchcraft trials including that of Margaret Jo in November 1628 and Janet Lyle in July 1661: Jo was eventually released but Lyle was strangled and then burnt at the stake.[4]

The town house, which was designed by James Crighton in the Palladian style and built in ashlar stone at right angles to the tollbooth, was completed in 1733.[2] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing northeast along the High Street; it featured a rounded doorway flanked by two round headed windows on the ground floor, and three sash windows on the first floor.[2] The central window on the first floor had a triangular pediment and the other two windows had segmental pediments.[2]

Following the Jacobite rising of 1745, some of the young pretender's supporters were imprisoned in the tolbooth before being sentenced to transportation overseas.[8] A council chamber, which was barrel vaulted[1] and accessed using an external staircase, was installed on the first floor of the tolbooth in 1762.[9] A series of vaulted prison cells accessed from vaulted corridors were installed on the first and second floors of the tolbooth in the first half of the 19th century.[3]

A large assembly hall was erected in the area behind the two buildings in the mid-19th century and modified to a design by William Constable in 1901.[10] In 1932, as part of the arrangements to commemorate the centenary of the death of the novelist, Sir Walter Scott, a plaque was placed on the wall of the tolbooth recording Scott's residency in quarters in Musselburgh while serving as a quartermaster in the Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons during the Napoleonic Wars.[11] The complex became known as the "municipal buildings" from around that time and continued to serve as the headquarters of Musselburgh Burgh Council for much of the 20th century[12] until new municipal buildings at Brunton Hall were completed in 1970.[13][14] The ground floor of the town house was subsequently let for retail use but the first floor of the town house and the whole of the tolbooth subsequently remained vacant: in 2016, an option appraisal was carried out with a view to bringing the upper floors of the tolbooth back into use, with the access either through the pend or through the town house.[15][16]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The ashlar stone was recovered from the Chapel of Our Lady of Loretto which had been destroyed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547: successive popes were horrified by this action and, for 250 years, the people of Musselburgh were annually excommunicated from the Catholic Church.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Historic Environment Scotland. "High Street Tolbooth (Category A Listed Building) (LB38309)". Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Historic Environment Scotland. "Town House (Category A Listed Building) (LB38308)". Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Historic Environment Scotland. "Musselburgh High Street Tolbooth (53862)". Canmore. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Stories in Stone – Musselburgh Tolbooth". Your Local Life. 2 October 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  5. ^ "The Early Days". Loretto School. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  6. ^ "Musselburgh Tolbooth". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  7. ^ "Musselburgh Town Centre Strategy". East Lothian Council. 3 December 2013. p. 19. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  8. ^ Eyre-Todd, George (1923). Famous Scottish Burghs, their Romantic Story. Heath Cranton.
  9. ^ McCallum, Alex (1912). Cambridge County Geographies: Midlothian. Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–135.
  10. ^ "Musselburgh Town House". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  11. ^ Lockhart, John Gibson (1872). The Life Of Scott. The Macmillan company. p. 48.
  12. ^ "No. 18583". The Edinburgh Gazette. 28 July 1967. p. 613.
  13. ^ "Brunton Hall and municipal offices". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  14. ^ "No. 19018". The Edinburgh Gazette. 17 August 1971. p. 653.
  15. ^ "Bidding to conserve Musselburgh Old Town Hall and Tolbooth for future generations". East Lothian Courier. 28 August 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  16. ^ "Musselburgh Old Town Hall: Options 1 and 2" (PDF). East Lothian Consultations. 12 February 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
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