JilO Topography of Dumfries. 



small wickers of light and the whole windows of this Castle were 

 barred strongly with Iron [there] being three large stories with 

 Turnpike and Bartisan covered with Lead, which building was com- 

 plcated in anno 1572. This Lord Nithsdale took into possession also 

 all the office houses and about 3 or 4 aikers of land at the back of 

 the Gardens." The Castle was purchased by the town in 1722, and 

 the New Church took its place, being, in turn, replaced bj' Grey- 

 friars in 1866. 



72 The extracts from the Burgh Records contained in the 

 " Transumpt of certanne bluids and ryetes " {Trans. D. & G. N. H. 

 & A. S., 3rd Seri, vii., p. 107) give no place of meeting until 1481. 

 The preceding entry, however, is of date 1473. The building may 

 have taken place between these dates. The foregoing evidence, 

 however, is no better than that adduced by Edgar, who, as the 

 following extract shows, presumes that the date on the bell (now 

 in the Observatory Museum, and apparently the earliest known 

 dated bell in Scotland), gifted, in honour of St. Michael, by Lord 

 Torthorwald in 1443, coincides with the erection of the Tolbooth, 

 in which it was hung: — "The Lord Torthorwald being a neigh- 

 bourly friend to the Town, when they had built the old Tolbooth, 

 lately re-edified into a Council house and Clerks Chamber, did 

 about the year 1443 gift the Town a little, clear, sharp sounding 

 Bell which serves to warn the Inhabitants to Courts and to the 

 Kirk on the Lord's day; the aera on this Bell is said to be about 

 1443 and from that time to 1708, that [when] the Mid-Steeple was 

 built, their was no other Bell either to warn to Kirk or Court, save 

 the Old Kirk Bell, supposed to belong to the Old Monastery of 

 Abbey or Newabbey." For confirmation of the last statement see 

 my notes in Dervorgilla, Lady of Galloway, and her Abhey of the 

 Sweet Heart, by Wentworth Huyshe, 1913, pp. 144-5. 



72a The Dumfries Tolbooth is celebrated in the ballad of "Archie 

 of Cafield" (Miller's Poets of Dwmfriesshire, p. 57): — 



" ! Jokie Hall stept to the door. 

 And he bended it back upon his knee. 

 And he made the bolts that the door hang on 

 Jump to the wa' right wantonlie. 



He took the prisoner on his back 



And down the Tolbooth stairs came he " — 



but many a story has yet to be told of the Tolbooth. 



73 These details are gathered from the Burgh Court Books of 

 various dates (slating, loth May, 1532, fol. 114 ; clock, 23rd Octo- 

 ber, 1533, fol. 131). Edgar (1746) confirms them as follows: — 

 " The old Tolbooth, which, in first floor above the shops (and these 

 above Vaults or Cellars), had three Partitions, the innermost where 

 all the Courts sat for deciding pleas and the Town Council. This 

 turning old and ruinous, being supposed to be among the first public 



