Tolbooth, High Street, Sanquhar

Sanquhar Tolbooth stands on High Street in the small town of Sanquhar, Dumfries and Galloway. The building is a Category A listed structure and houses a local history museum. It replaced an earlier tolbooth from the late 15th century that had fallen into ruin by the 1680s. The new building was commissioned by Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry, whose family seat was Drumlanrig Castle. Construction began in 1735 and was completed in 1739 under the direction of architect William Adam in the Baroque style. The tolbooth’s design features a symmetrical frontage with five bays facing down the High Street. The central section projects slightly forward and includes an external double staircase leading to a first-floor entrance. The outer bays have doorways on the ground floor and sash windows on the first floor, all framed by architraves and keystones. At the top, a square clock tower with an octagonal belfry and ogive-shaped dome rises above the roof. Inside, the ground floor once held prison cells, while the first floor contained a council chamber, an octagonal vestibule and a reception room. The building served as the town’s council meeting place for much of the 20th century before becoming a museum in 1989. Today it displays artefacts from the local knitting and mining trades, along with a portrait by Jacob Epstein of Sir William Cotts. A coat of arms of the Crichton family, former owners of Sanquhar Castle, was added to the front in the late 1950s. The tolbooth remains a notable example of 18th-century municipal architecture in Scotland.