OS1/24/36/30

Continued entries/extra info

[page]30

[continued]
"at the Port-brae. Within these limits the New Town was originally built. The wall
included the Chapel of the Virgin at the west End of High Street and also a pile of
building which formed the old Tolbooth, Situated at the foot of Brig-gate. It seems
probable that this Tolbooth, or prison, was originally nothing else than the house of the
warden appointed to take charge of the gate: for such was the origin of many prisons both
in England and Scotland. The very name imports a place for taking toll at the entrance
to a walled City. The gate at the foot of the Brig-gate was doubtless an important inlet
to the town. It was the way by which Communication was Chiefly kept up between the
Cross Church and the mansion of the Dean of Tweeddale, and led to what was long the
Principal Entrance from the Old Town, as well as the County on the west".
Chamber's "Guide to Peebles and it's Neighbourhood"
P. [Page] 50 & 51