The Tolbooth
The former Stonehaven Town Council restored the Tolbooth and in September 1963, Her Majesty the Queen Mother reopened it. There is a restaurant on the first floor which specialises in sea food with a excellent view of Stonehaven Harbour. The ground floor holds the museum, which attracts thousands of people from across Britain and across the World. The Tolbooth was originally the work of staff and pupils of Stonehaven's Mackie Academy.


The 15th Century building was mainly used by the Earl Marischal for storing supplies for Dunnottar Castle. In 1600, Stonehaven became the County Town of Kincardineshire and the Tolbooth was the Courthouse and Prison. After the '45th Rebellion , religious persecution led to the Episcopalian clergy at Stonehaven and nearby Muchalls and Drumlithie being imprisoned there for six months. Determined that the infants be baptised by their own ministers, the wives of the fisher man from Cowie and Skateraw at Newtonhill carried their children through knee high deep water and over jagged rocks to the barred window from where the minister carried out baptism as the children were held up. This scene has been depicted in a famous painting, the original of which is now in the house of the Episcopal Bishop of Brechin. In 1767 the Tolbooth became a storehouse once again for fisherman and merchants and later ship chandlery and fishing gear were sold here.
There appears no reason to doubt the generally accepted account that the building was erected as a storehouse, and the Tolbooth's architectural characteristics and what survives of the internal arrangement, are in full keeping with this view. It seems fairly certain that the Earl Marischal built it for storing his materials at the time he was carrying out his big building programme and furnishing his new palace at Dunnottar. It was, in fact, a kind of quayside shed, its position making it convenient as a dumping place for provisions brought by sea for Dunnottar Castle, the harbour being sheltered enough for such cargoes to be unshipped safely at times when the weather was not favourable enough for landings near the rock itself. This function of warehouse the Tolbooth was stopped in the 1600's.
Dilapitated and Deserted
After 1767 the old Tolbooth reverted to its use as a storehouse for merchants and fishermen, the upper part becoming a granary and the ground floor being converted into a coal and lime store. At a later date ship chandlery and fishing equipment were sold within its walls, and about the time of the first World War visitors used to be conducted over the building and shown the window through which the baptisms were performed, the room in which the clergy were imprisoned and the yard in which they were permitted to take exercise. In November, 1944, during World War II, a mine exploded against the pier near the ancient building, then in a dilapidated condition. The damage done to the roof was aggravated by the havoc played by the great gale of January 31st, 1953, when many more slates were stripped off. Later the Tolbooth was deserted except for one small room where, behind the solidity of the walls which were between two and three feet thick, a hardy old fisherman mended his lobster pots in defiance of the small winds that blew in through a gaping hole in the ceiling.
The Tolbooth Restored
On 11th September, 1963, the Tolbooth was restored and reopened by Her Majesty, the Queen Mother. This was well worth doing, for the building had become something of a shrine to the Scottish Episcopal Church, one of its rooms having become a Church Room. As a historic relic in its own right, however, resisting so many shocks of gales and weather as it has done on the North Pier for more than 370 years, the building is part of our cultural heritage, handed on to us from our stormy past.