Banff Town House

Georgian town house and tolbooth at the heart of the old burgh

Address Low Street, Banff AB45 1AY

The Town House on Banff's Low Street is the civic centrepiece of the old burgh: a tall, harled Georgian building dating from 1796, topped with a steeple containing one of the oldest civic bells in Scotland. It served as council chambers, courtroom, and jail in a single compact package, and the basement still preserves cell doors from its time as a tolbooth.

Today the building houses a council-run heritage and registration office. The exterior is the main draw — it anchors a tight cluster of 18th-century townhouses around Plainstones, the cobbled square in front, which gives Banff its claim to be one of the finest small Georgian towns in Scotland.

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A story
The Town House replaced an earlier 16th-century tolbooth on the same site. The bell in the steeple was cast in 1675 and predates the present building by nearly a century — it was rung at the public hanging of the notorious outlaw James Macpherson in 1700, an event commemorated in the well-known fiddle tune 'Macpherson's Rant'.

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