The Old Tolbooth was a medieval building located on the Royal Mile

Royal Mile

The Royal Mile is a succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scots mile long, and runs between two foci of history in Scotland, from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle...

 in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

Demolished in 1817, the Tolbooth served various purposes during its existence. It housed early meetings of the Estates of Scotland, Court of Session

Court of Session

The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, and constitutes part of the College of Justice. It sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a court of first instance and a court of appeal....

, and also of the Provost and Burgesses of the Burgh Council. Furthermore it was employed as the Burgh's main gaol, and was one of the more popular places of public execution

Public Execution

Public Execution is a Mouse and the Traps retrospective album that has been released in both LP and CD formats. The LP has an unusually large number of tracks , while the CD includes 4 bonus tracks and catalogues almost all of the released music by Mouse and the Traps and their associated bands: ...

 and torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

 for criminals and enemies of the state alike.

Location

The Tolbooth was situated in Parliament Close (present-day West Parliament Square) by the west door of St. Giles Cathedral where its footprint is now outlined out by brass markers on the setts

Sett (paving)

A sett, usually the plural setts and in some places called a Belgian block, often incorrectly called "cobblestone", is a broadly rectangular quarried stone used originally for paving roads, today a decorative stone paving used in landscape architecture...

 of the Square. The pattern of setts known as the Heart of Midlothian

Heart of Midlothian (Royal Mile)

The Heart of Midlothian is a heart-shaped mosaic built into the pavement near the West Door of St Giles High Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, not far from Parliament House, which was the former Parliament of Scotland, and now the site of the Court of Session and Signet Library.Together with...

 marks the entrance to the building.

History

Originally the revenues of the burgh were granted to the monks of Holyrood, but by the 14th century trade in the burgh was flourishing to the extent that Robert II

Robert II of Scotland

Robert II became King of Scots in 1371 as the first monarch of the House of Stewart. He was the son of Walter Stewart, hereditary High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I and of his first wife Isabella of Mar...

 signed a charter granting the burgesses the right to a construct a 'belhous' in what is now Parliament Square. This was in order to organise collections of revenues on goods sold in the market there, and to collect taxes for the crown.

Various parliaments of the realm were held at the Tolbooth, and it is referred to as the "Pretorium Burgi". The first use of the term Tolbooth rather than Belhous or Pretorium Burgi was in an act of parliament in 1451, during the reign of James II

James II of Scotland

James II reigned as King of Scots from 1437 to his death.He was the son of James I, King of Scots, and Joan Beaufort...

. The building itself was not completed until 1466. There is evidence to suggest that even then this was not a wholly new building, and incorporated the earlier "house of the Provost of St Giles" (i.e. the manse of St Giles). This explains its otherwise peculiar siting in relation to the church.

By the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, the building was in a perilous state, and she ordered (on 2 February 1561) its demolition and rebuilding. Much of the new function transposed to a new building on the south-west corner of St Giles Cathedral. The old building was partly rebuilt, but one half remained in its 1466 form. The brand new building served better to accommodate the queen's Lords of Session and the Burgesses. From 1560 the older building was used almost exclusively as a gaol.

In 1571 "the tour of the auld Tolbuyth was tane doun", that is to say, the tower of the old Tolbooth was taken down. The "new tolbooth" to the south was removed in 1632, being outlasted by the old Tolbooth.

Following the removal of the Parliament of Scotland

Parliament of Scotland

The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...

 to the new Parliament House

Parliament House, Edinburgh

Parliament House in Edinburgh, Scotland, was home to the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland, and now houses the Supreme Courts of Scotland. It is located in the Old Town, just off the Royal Mile, opposite St Giles Cathedral.-Parliament Hall:...

 in 1639, the Tolbooth remained in use by the Burgh council until 1811, when they moved across the street to occupy the Royal Exchange building, which had been built by Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

 in 1753.

The original Tolbooth continued as a prison and place of execution until it was finally demolished in 1817.

Punishment

From its construction, the Tolbooth was used as a place of incarceration, judicial torture and execution. A permanent platform was raised on its west facade, so that the Edinburgh mob could view beheadings and hangings of malefactors.

The platform was also the location of the Maiden

Maiden (beheading)

The Maiden is an early form of guillotine, or gibbet, once used as a means of execution in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Maiden is displayed at the National Museum of Scotland...

, the early guillotine

Guillotine

The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

, introduced by Regent Morton

James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton

James Douglas, jure uxoris 4th Earl of Morton 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 did manage to win the civil war which had been dragging on with the supporters of the exiled Mary, Queen of...

, who was eventually beheaded by it himself in 1581.

The exterior of the building had Jougs

Jougs

The jougs, juggs, or joggs is an instrument of punishment formerly in use in Scotland, the Netherlands and other countries.- Purpose :...

 attached and there were spikes to hold body parts of those convicted of capital or treasonable offences, such as the head of Regent Morton and that of the Great Montrose

James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose

James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose was a Scottish nobleman and soldier, who initially joined the Covenanters in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but subsequently supported King Charles I as the English Civil War developed...

.

During the North Berwick witch trials

North Berwick witch trials

The North Berwick witch trials were the trials in 1590 of a number of people from East Lothian, Scotland, accused of witchcraft in the St Andrew's Auld Kirk in North Berwick. They ran for two years and implicated seventy people. The accused included Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell on charges...

, some of the accused were tortured in the building by use of the Boot

Boot (torture)

The boot was an instrument of torture and interrogation designed to crush the foot and leg. The boot has taken many forms in various places and times. Common varieties include the Spanish boot and the Malay boot. One type was made of four pieces of narrow wooden board nailed together. The boards...

, Pilliwinks etc.

Display of heads

The heads of executed persons were often notoriously displayed for long periods after the execution. Heads were placed on "the prick of the highest stone": a spike on the northern gable facing the Royal Mile. The Regent Morton's head was affixed here, 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 1660.

Famous inmates and executions

The Tolbooth in fiction

The Tolbooth features heavily in the 1818 work The Heart of Midlothian

The Heart of Midlothian

The Heart of Midlothian 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 Cleishbotham, Schoolmaster and Parish-clerk of Gandercleugh"...

, by Sir Walter Scott, published the year after the demolition of the building. Scott obtained the entrance doorway to the gaol and incorporated it into his new mansion of Abbotsford House

Abbotsford House

Abbotsford is a historic house in the region of the Scottish Borders in the south of Scotland, near Melrose, on the south bank of the River Tweed. It was formerly the residence of historical novelist and poet, Walter Scott...

.

See also

• Heart of Midlothian (Royal Mile)
  Heart of Midlothian (Royal Mile)
  The Heart of Midlothian is a heart-shaped mosaic built into the pavement near the West Door of St Giles High Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, not far from Parliament House, which was the former Parliament of Scotland, and now the site of the Court of Session and Signet Library.Together with...
  
  

Sources

• Skelton, Douglas. Dark Heart, tales from Edinburgh's town jail. Mainstream, Edinburgh 2008