Tolbooth Steeple

Question 1

Glasgow Cross (still pronounced tolbooth)

Answer 1

Glasgow cross is the area where the Trongate, Gallowgate and London Road meet the High Street, to the north and Saltmarket, to the south. For this reason it was a commercial centre.
- Built between 1625 and 1626, the Tolbooth steeple (which now stands in isolation) was once part of a larger building: the tollbooth, which housed the town clerk’s office, the council hall and a prison and was demolished in 1921

Question 2

executions

Answer 2

• the building is 126ft tall and was originally used to hang people
• evidence of punishments inflicted at the cross are still visible on the walls of the tollbooth steeple: metal rings, remind us that people were once chained to the wall.
• the area’s gruesome association with capital punishment is reinforced in the street name ‘Gallowgate’, a street to the east of the tollbooth which was understood to mean ‘the way to the gallows’

Question 3

Dr Edward Pritchard

Answer 3

a glasgow medical practitioner was the last person to be executed in public in 1865, after being condemned to death for the poisoning of his wife and mother in law. He was hanged in front of an audience of 100,000 people. Throughout his trial, Pritchard maintained his innocence and there are still people who believe it was a miscarriage of justice.