Culross Town House

Culross Town House, also known as Culross Tolbooth, is a municipal structure in the Sandhaven area of Culross, Fife, Scotland. The building, which now serves as a visitor centre, is Category A listed.
The town house was commissioned to replace an earlier tolbooth on the same site. It was designed in the Scottish medieval style, built in sandstone and was completed in 1626. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing Back Causeway; there was an external double forestair containing a blind oculus leading up to a central doorway with a rectangular fanlight on the first floor. The staircase was flanked, on the ground floor, by two small windows and, beyond that, by two small doorways. The first floor was fenestrated with four square-headed sash windows. A three-stage clock tower was installed in 1783: the first stage involved a round headed window, the second stage featured a clock designed and manufactured by Laurence Dalgleish and the third stage featured a louvered opening. The whole structure was surmounted by a cornice, an ogee-shaped dome and a weather vane. Internally, the principal rooms on the first floor were a council chamber and a reception room and a debtors' prison; the ground floor was occupied by cells for the incarceration of criminals. It is likely that Lilias Adie of nearby Torryburn was among the many women accused of witchcraft who were held in the cells in the garret. The only source of light were the small windows below the roofline and whatever sunlight shone through the slate roof.

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