Qualla: Kirkcudbright Tolbooth

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit habiloid, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bessie Paine died in the winter of 1671, locked in what the record calls the 'dark dungeon' of the Kirkcudbright Tolbooth. She had been arrested in Dumfries with four other women - Janet Hewat, Grissall McNae, Margaret McGuffok, Margaret Fleming - accused of casting charms on animals and trying to cure children with witchcraft. They were transported in chains to this building, denied food, denied their own possessions, and held 'at the point of starving.' The other four were eventually released the following summer, the court conceding they had been 'maliciously misrepresented as guiltie of the most horrid crymes.' Bessie was already dead, killed by 'cold, hunger and other inconveniences of the prison.' The tolbooth she died in is still standing on Kirkcudbright's high street. It is now an art gallery.

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Image: habiloid | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: What a Tolbooth Was

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LornaMCampbell, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the medieval period onward, every Scottish royal burgh had a tolbooth. The name comes from the building's original role as a place to collect tolls and customs on the markets and international trade that royal burghs were licensed to conduct from the twelfth century. But the...

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Image: LornaMCampbell | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: Built Between 1627 and 1629

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Kinnear, CC BY-SA 2.0. Kirkcudbright already had a tolbooth - a converted church - but by 1625 the councillors were complaining about its condition. They raised money by selling rights to the booths inside the planned new building, by claiming a portion of fines collected by local magistrates, and thro...

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Image: Colin Kinnear | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: Covenanters and the 1684 Raid

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Goose assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the Covenanters - Presbyterians who refused to accept royal authority over the Scottish church - became a hunted minority. The Tolbooth held many of them during the years known as the Killing Time (1679-1688). John Neilson of Corsock w...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Goose assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: Iron Jougs and a Pretended Witch

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two sets of iron jougs - neck restraints - still hang from the tolbooth wall. One is at the north-west corner about 1.5 metres above street level; the other is at the top of the forestair. People convicted of minor offences were locked into them in front of their neighbours. By 1...

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Image: Graham | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kirkcudbright Tolbooth: John Paul Jones and the Long Afterlife

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elizabeth MacNicol, Public domain. John Paul Jones - the man who would later become celebrated as a hero of the American Revolutionary War - was held in this building in 1770. He had ordered a sailor named Mungo Maxwell flogged on the brig John; Maxwell later died of yellow fever on another ship, and Maxwell's fat...

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Image: Elizabeth MacNicol | Public domain