Notice of the shingled roof of the tower of the Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of the shingled roof of the tower of the Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    rights of his mitred predecessors over the burgh. The present structure is the successor of a much earlier building, probably on the same site. The date on the tower is 1591; and preparations for its erec- tion appear in the Burgh Register seven years before this, where it is enacted, that no remission of fees shaU be granted to any one, ' unto the tyme the Tolbuith of this burch be edefeit and bisrgit.' (Canongate Burgh Register, 13th October 1584; ibid., p. 353.) Nevertheless, we find by the Burgh Registers for 1561, 'Curia capitalis burgi vici canonicorum Monasterii Sancte Crucis prope Edin- burgh ; tenia in pretorio ejtisdem,' and frequent refer- ences occur to the Tolbuith, both as a court-house and prison, in the Registers and in the Treasurer's accounts, e.g. 1574, ' To sax pynouris att the bailleis command for taking doun of the lintall stane of the auld tolbuith windo, iijs. vjd.' The very next entry is a fee *to ane new pyper,' an official of the burgh, of whom various notices are found at this very early period. The Hotel de Ville of this The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh, ancient burgh is surmounted by a tower and spire, flanked by two turrets in front, from between which
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