Old Photograph Town Clock High Street Dunbar Scotland

Old photograph of the town clock on the town house on the High Street in Dunbar in East Lothian, Scotland. Dunbar Town House was the town’s tollbooth for civil administration and housed the town’s jail in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. An earlier tolbooth was probably undergoing repairs in 1545, when the bailies held courts in the churchyard. In 1593 the inhabitants were ordered to cart stones from the quarry at Innerwick for the bigging of the Tolbuth, and two years later an agreement was made with William Nicholson, mender of the town clock. It is possible that part of the surviving structure may date from this period, with the upper part of the stair tower as a later addition. The only recorded work during the 17th century is the painting of the sundial, council room and armorial panels undertaken by Alexander Mackbyth in 1686. Repairs were undertaken to the masonry and window fittings of the prison in 1705, and to the steeple in 1707, but in 1714 a Parliamentary duty on ale was obtained, whereas the Town House and school are very old and of age decayed and must go to ruin unless speedily repaired. The subsequent repairs may have included the large dormer windows and the panelling of the council-chamber, and in 1723 timber was obtained to make three sash windows for it. In 1816 the spire was repaired at an estimated cost of £80, but two years later it was proposed to build a new town-house, on the same site, to include; a Council Room, Assembly Room, an Academy, and a Farmers' Hall. Nothing came of this, although new Assembly Rooms were built in 1822, and the building was little altered until the renovations of 1911 to 1913.



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