Crail, Marketgate. View from south west.

Description Crail, Marketgate. View from south west.

Date c. 1885

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number F 1916

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 739247

Scope and Content Marketgate, Crail, Fife, looking south-east Marketgate, a broad thoroughfare that runs parallel to the shore, is one of Crail's oldest streets, and once formed one of the largest medieval market-places in Europe. The Scottish photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed Marketgate on a visit to Crail c.1885. The street is dominated by the squat 18th-century tower of the tolbooth (town hall). The lower part of the tower dates from the 16th century, and the two diminishing stages (the upper one with a clock) were added in 1776. The distinctive pagoda-like slated spire with its dormer belfry-openings probably dates from the same time. The whitewashed, harled Golf Hotel (right), a former coaching inn, dates from the early 18th century. Crail tolbooth was originally built in the 16th century to serve the town as council chamber, courthouse, tax-office, guard-house and prison cells. The main block (left) which, by the early 19th century had become 'old and ruinous', was extensively rebuilt in 1814-15 and housed the council chamber on the first floor. The tower contained the guard-house and the prison cells in the lower storeys. The belfry has a fine Flemish bell, made in 1520, which rang the curfew for the town at 10pm each night. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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