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A model of the Old Tolbooth, known as the 'Heart of Midlothian', in the city's Huntly House Museum. The execution platform, which projected from the western end of the building, can be clearly seen. The whole structure was demolished in 1817 to widen the High Street for traffic. Link

"On the west end of the great Church, but in a different building, is the Tolbooth, or common prison, as well as criminals as debtors, and a miserable hole it is, to say no worse of it; though for those that can pay for it, there are some apartments tolerable enough, and persons of quality are sometimes confined here. The great church and this prison also standing in the middle of the street, the breadth and beauty of it is for some time interrupted, and the way is contracted for so far as those buildings reach on the north side. But those buildings past, the street opens again to a breadth rather wider than before, and this is called the Lawnmarket." -- Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro' The Whole Island Of Great Britain (c.1716)

NT2573 : Heart of Midlothian