Lerwick Old Tolbooth: A Scottish Civic and Judicial Building
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British
- Site type
- Civic
On this page11 sections
History
Lerwick Old Tolbooth is an eighteenth-century civic and judicial building in Lerwick, United Kingdom, built in the Scottish medieval style between 1767 and 1770. A tolbooth was a Scottish civic building used for local government, courts, and imprisonment, and this building combined all three functions. It replaced an earlier tolbooth on the same site that had been completed in the seventeenth century.
Construction and civic functions
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the first tolbooth had become dilapidated. The Commissioners of Supply, county-level bodies responsible for administrative and financial affairs before modern elected county councils, commissioned a replacement. Robert and James Forbes built the new structure, whose foundation stone was laid in June 1767. The building was completed in 1770.
Its original arrangement reflected the varied responsibilities of a tolbooth. Two prison cells occupied the basement, while the ground floor contained a courtroom at the west end and a schoolroom at the east. An assembly room occupied the eastern end of the first floor. In 1825, a clock was added to the first stage of the tower, and the schoolroom was converted into an office for the sheriff’s clerk, the court official responsible for the administrative work and records of a sheriff court.
Changing judicial and civic roles
Prison use ended after an inspector reported poor conditions in 1836. The prisoners were transferred to Fort Charlotte, a coastal fortification in Lerwick that was then used as a replacement prison. A new courthouse was built behind the County Buildings on King Erik Street in 1875, and local police constables moved from the tolbooth to a new police station behind the county buildings around the same time.
The building continued to serve local needs after its judicial functions declined. The ground floor housed Lerwick’s post office from 1878, and a replacement clock made by Potts of Leeds was installed in the tower in 1887. In 1912, the ground floor became a branch of the Fishermen’s Mission, a charitable institution providing welfare and support to fishermen and fishing communities. The mission remained there until it moved to Harbour Street in 1962.
Later reuse and refurbishment
Zetland County Council acquired the building in 1965 and subsequently rented it to the British Red Cross, the Shetland Tourist Association, and the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. After the structure became dilapidated later in the twentieth century, it underwent a major refurbishment in 2003–2004. DITT Construction carried out the work to designs by PJP Architects, including restoration of the original clock tower, which had been removed in 1927.
Following the refurbishment, the building became Lerwick Lifeboat Station, supporting the local lifeboat berthed in the harbour immediately to its north. Lerwick Old Tolbooth is a Category B listed building, designated under the official name “32 Commercial Street, Old Tolbooth” on 8 December 1971.
Remains
Exterior form
Commercial Street frontage
The building presents a symmetrical five-bay principal frontage to Commercial Street. A central doorway is reached by a short flight of steps and framed by a stone surround and cornice. Sash windows occupy the outer bays of the ground floor and all five bays of the first floor. The structure is built of stone with a cement-rendered finish.
Clock tower
A two-stage tower rises at roof level and is topped by a pyramid-shaped spire. Louvres were inserted into the second stage during construction. The tower originally received a clock in 1825, while a replacement made by Potts of Leeds was installed in 1887. The original tower was removed in 1927 and restored during the 2003–2004 refurbishment.
Interior arrangement and later fabric
Historic rooms
The basement contained two prison cells. On the ground floor, the courtroom stood at the west end and the schoolroom at the east, while the first-floor assembly room occupied the eastern end. The schoolroom later became the sheriff’s clerk’s office. In subsequent phases, the ground-floor rooms accommodated the post office and the Fishermen’s Mission before their later conversion for lifeboat-station use.
Refurbished interior
The 2003–2004 work involved removing the roof and stripping the interior back to the walls. A steel frame was then inserted to support the floors, creating the structural arrangement used in the building’s later life as a lifeboat station.
