Building record MAB23921 - TOWN HOUSE, ABERDEEN

Municipal buildings and town house, including courthouses, and incorporating the remaining part of a 17th Century tolbooth.

Municipal buildings and town house, including courthouses, and incorporating the remaining part of the 17th Century tolbooth. The remains of the tolbooth, which dates from 1615-1627, stands on the site of its predecessor built in 1394. The tolbooth is largely obscured by modern buildings but a square, 3-storey, ashlar tower with corbelled bartizans and a spire are exposed in Lodge Walk. The belfry and spire were added in 1627, although the present spire dates from 1726 when the first clock was installed. The present clock dates from 1817. The main function of the building was as a prison (Wardhouse Tower of the Tolbooth).

The town house itself, which lay to the west, was repaired in 1670 and rebuilt in 1729 when a staircase was added. After Aberdeen was 'liberated' by Cumberland's forces in 1746, the known and suspected Jacobite’s were brought to the tolbooth prior to trial. In 1818-1820 a new courthouse was built by John Smith to the north of the town house, involving the rebuilding of the south elevation of the tolbooth and significant internal alterations. See also MAB57272 for the attached jail, East Prison.

By the second half of the 19th Century, the accommodation at Aberdeen courthouse was inadequate and it was recommended that the town house be redeveloped as part of an improvement scheme. Work commenced in 1867 on the demolition of buildings on the site, including the old town house. The present Aberdeen Town House was built between 1868-1874 by John Dick Peddie and Charles George Hood Kinnear; the City Chambers on Broad Street were added in 1975. The 19th Century municipal building is 4-storey with attic, in Scots Baronial style, with an advanced 6-stage corbelled and bartizaned, square-plan, 5-stage clock tower. It is on a prominent corner site, built of grey granite ashlar.

Aberdeen Town House and its extension contains two war memorials, one to the fallen of the 51st Highland Division for both World War I and World War II, the other in memory of the Royal Field Artillery 1st Highland Brigade killed in World War I, and to 75th Regiments and all gunners based at any time at the former drill hall on Ruby Lane, who died in World War II. Also within the Town House is the Royal Navy crest from HMS Scylla presented to the City of Aberdeen to commemorate the adoption of HMS Scylla during warship week 1942.

A number of carved stones from the old tolbooth are now in St. Nicholas Kirk. The stones were assembled in a 'summerhouse' at 25 Dee Street, which was later moved to Duthie Park, where it stood until circa 1970, after which the stones seem to have passed to the Kirk.

A watching brief in 1989 during consolidation work recorded mortar-bonded walls below the floor of the Old Town House, in the area in which the 17th Century tolbooth is incorporated (see MAB57500). Renovation within the Town House since 1989 has enabled further below ground evidence of the tolbooth to be recovered. A watching brief in 1990 during continued alterations in and around the 17th-18th century structure recorded previously obscured openings and other details.

ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL, , ABERDEEN'S JACOBITE TRAIL AND COLLECTIONS (Bibliographic reference). SAB8364.

COUNCIL FOR SCOTTISH ARCHAEOLOGY, 1990, DISCOVERY & EXCAVATION IN SCOTLAND 1990, p.17 (Bibliographic reference). SAB5339.

DENNISON, E, 1997, HISTORIC ABERDEEN: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. THE SCOTTISH BURGH SURVEY, p. 67 (Bibliographic reference). SAB4057.

ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL, 2017, A LIST OF SOME OF THE WAR MEMORIALS IN ABERDEEN CITY (Bibliographic reference). SAB6461.

Sep 2 2022 , ACC-GR-22-09-002, ACC-GR-22-09-002 (Ground Photograph). SAB36078.

Record last edited

Aug 10 2026 3:03PM