Tolbooth Tavern, Edinburgh
Our first official Edinburgh stop was the Tolbooth Tavern. It was lunchtime and Ren had thoughtfully planned ahead with this one. She'd booked the Scottish Tasting Platter for us to try as she'd come across the fascinating history of this place and wanted to visit.
This tavern has had quite the diverse history, pub, prison, tolbooth, police court, and even council chambers. But it all started in 1591 with the Canongate Tolbooth.
The original Tolbooth was built to take tolls from those hoping to enter the burgh at Canongate. Located towards the bottom of the Royal Mile, people flocked here and so this continued until the ground floor of the medieval building was converted into a tavern in 1820. This of course became the Tolbooth Tavern as why would you call it anything else!
Between 1591 and 1820, the building, while also being the tolbooth, also doubled as a few other things. While it was a prison, some of those detained were the innocents made captive during the Scottish radical movement for liberty and independence. These captives were brutally treated and suffered horrifically at the hands of their captors. The security had clearly been improved upon following the 1654 escape incident. Oliver Cromwell's guards had imprisoned several Scottish enemies of the state within the Tolbooth prison but they fashioned a rope out of strips of blankets and scaled the building to freedom from the upper floor. The cells were also home to the Covenanters for a while. Prisoners were typically sent to the Caribbean for seven years for hard labour. Once their sentence was up they were allowed back to Scotland if they wished, but with freedom came a condition... women had their face branded and men had an ear cut off. This way both them and passers by would never forget their history, a new start was presented but we doubt it was ever a pleasant one.
Most interestingly from the Tolbooth's prison days was the suspected Warlock. He was supposedly exorcised here by Sir Lewis Bellenden (the lay successor to the Abbots of Holyrood) and the poor assumed Warlock was so terrified by the preacher who it is said gave no mercy that he died soon after the experience.
Aside from the gruesome deaths which took place during the prison days, the Tolbooth was also housing. The rear section of the current pub was built as residence in 1750 and continued in this use into the early 20th century. It's reputedly haunted despite not being as old as the front section of the pub. We ate in this bit and can confirm it has a completely different vibe from the main section of the pub. It's colder, and you notice the difference when going up the steps. When in the loo it was creepy and you felt like you're being watched. Ren didn't stay in the ladies too long.
We do love a historical pub and dip in to them whenever we can, but this one was certainly special. We tried Scottish Salmon and Oatcakes, medley of garlic mushrooms on toast, Haggis Croquets with Whiskey sauce (we'd had Haggis with our breakfast so it wasn't our first trying as intended), Fish & Chips, and Cranachan. It was delicious and we were well fed for sure! But while we ate we soaked in the atmosphere of this haunted historical pub and while spooky it was quite homely. We'd go again for sure and it is quite central to the main stretch of Edinburgh. It's dog friendly which is a plus, but we planned our next stops from here and had no trouble getting around.
We've recently been watching the Cooper Siblings' Nightwatch and think they should consider a stay here for sure! We want to see what they'd uncover as we don't always get the opportunity ourselves!
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