place

Canongate Tolbooth

1591 establishments in ScotlandBuildings and structures in EdinburghCategory A listed buildings in EdinburghDefunct prisons in EdinburghListed prison buildings in Scotland
Royal MileTourist attractions in EdinburghUse British English from March 2017
Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh
Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh

Canongate Tolbooth is a historic landmark of the Old Town area of Edinburgh, built in 1591 as a tolbooth, that is, the centre of administration and justice of the then separate burgh of the Canongate which was outside the Edinburgh town walls. It ceased to be a municipal building in 1856 and it is now occupied by The People's Story Museum and is protected as a category A listed building.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Canongate Tolbooth (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Canongate Tolbooth
Canongate, City of Edinburgh Canongate

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Phone number Website Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Canongate TolboothContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 55.9515 ° E -3.18 °
placeShow on map

Address

The People's Story Museum

Canongate 163
EH8 8BN City of Edinburgh, Canongate
Scotland, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Phone number

call+441315294057

Website
edinburghmuseums.org.uk

linkVisit website

Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh
Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh
Share experience

Nearby Places

The Canongate
The Canongate

The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Edinburgh's Old Town. It began when David I of Scotland, by the Great Charter of Holyrood Abbey c.1143, authorised the Abbey to found a burgh separate from Edinburgh between the Abbey and Edinburgh. The burgh of Canongate that developed was controlled by the Abbey until the Scottish Reformation when it came under secular control. In 1636 the adjacent city of Edinburgh bought the feudal superiority of the Canongate but it remained a semi-autonomous burgh under its own administration of bailies chosen by Edinburgh magistrates, until its formal incorporation into the city in 1856. The burgh gained its name from the route that the canons of Holyrood Abbey took to Edinburgh - the canons' way or the canons' gait, from the Scots word gait meaning "way". In more modern times, the eastern end is sometimes referred to as part of the Holyrood area of the city. The Canongate contains several historic buildings including Queensberry House, now incorporated in the Scottish Parliament Building complex, Huntly House (now the Museum of Edinburgh), the Canongate Tolbooth (now housing the People's Story Museum) and the Canongate Kirk, opened in 1691 replacing Holyrood Abbey as the parish church of the Canongate. The church is still used for Sunday services as well as weekday concerts.

Old Royal High School
Old Royal High School

The Old Royal High School, also known as New Parliament House, is a 19th-century neoclassical building on Calton Hill in the city of Edinburgh. The building was constructed for the use of the city's Royal High School, and gained its alternative name as a result of a proposal in the 1970s for it to house a devolved Scottish Assembly. After the Royal High School was relocated in 1968, the building became available and was refurbished to accommodate a new devolved legislature for Scotland. However, the 1979 devolution referendum failed to provide sufficient backing for a devolved assembly. Its debating chamber was later used for meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee, the committee of Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons with constituencies in Scotland. Subsequently, the building has been used as offices for departments of Edinburgh City Council, including The Duke of Edinburgh's Award unit and the Sports and Outdoor Education unit.With the passage of the Scotland Act 1998 and the introduction of Scottish devolution in 1999, the Old Royal High School was again mooted as a potential home for the new Scottish Parliament. Eventually, however, the Scotland Office decided to site the new legislature in a purpose-built structure in the Holyrood area of the Canongate. Edinburgh's original Parliament House is in the Old Town just off the Royal Mile and currently houses the Court of Session. These were the buildings of the former Parliament of Scotland which existed before the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and the foundation of a British Parliament sitting at London's Palace of Westminster. A number of uses have been suggested for the building, including a home for a Scottish National Photography Centre. In 2015, The City of Edinburgh Council, which currently owns the building, initiated a project to lease it to be used as a luxury hotel. However, in 2021, it was announced that the lease to the hotel developers had been cancelled, and a new use was being sought.