Pittenweem Tolbooth, Pittenweem, Fife

At the end of the high street in the picturesque fishing village of Pittenweem located in the East Neuk of Fife, stands the tolbooth tower, a four-storey building with a vaulted basement. The tower as it stands today, was built in the 1620s, although there was probably another building on the site previously.



The tolbooth building is a narrow tower with a steep spiral staircase and essentially is just one room per floor and was central in the 1704 witch trials. At that time, Pittenweem was a wealthy town but through misfortune had fallen on hard times. When in March 1704, Patrick Morton, a sixteen year old blacksmith fell ill and claimed he had been effected by witchcraft, the local authorities saw an opportunity to ease the financial situation. Morton named a local woman called Beatrix Laing as his tormentor and she was arrested and subsequently brought to the tolbooth for questioning. The town council at the time met in the room on the first floor, which is where she was initially taken for the charges to be put to her, but after refusing to sign a confession, she was taken to the second floor, where the torture then began. Methods commonly used were ‘walking the witch’ whereby the accused would have a rope tied around them and they would constantly be walked round the room by the guards. Though the guards would take breaks and take turns to ‘walk the witch’, the accused was not allowed to rest, received no food or water and would often be walked for days at a time. If they slowed down, they would be struck with a bat, which would often have nails driven through it to rip their flesh from the body.

The most dreaded means of torture was however delivered by the Witch Prickers. The accused would first of all be stripped naked, and have every hair shaved from their body. They would then be examined for any unusual markings on the body, as the belief was that a witch would have a devils mark somewhere, which would confirm they had been touched by Satan. This mark could be anything, many of which occur naturally on the human body, such as moles or scars. It was however believed that the witch would feel no pain on the devils mark and it would not bleed, and so to test this theory the Witch Pricker would drive a needle or spike, several inches long, directly into the mark. If the accused showed any signs of pain, this was taken as evidence that it was not a devils mark that had been found, and the examination would therefore continue. If by some miracle, the accused managed not to show their pain, they were considered a witch and sent for execution regardless.

If, after every blemish on the body had been tested and the devils mark had still not been found, rather than consider the accused to be proven innocent, it was instead assumed the mark must be hidden somewhere under the skin. The pricker would then start to drive his needle into every inch of the body of the accused, looking for a spot where they felt absolutely no pain. This process could take several days and many of those accused simply gave up and admitted to witchcraft, just to end their agony. At the time, a confession obtained through torture was only accepted if it was backed up by a second confession provided at the free will of the accused. After the first confession, the accused would then be made comfortable, fed and treated well, before being asked to again sign the second confession. Many by this time had come to their senses and refused to do so, at which point they were taken back upstairs for the pricker to begin working on them again. It really was a hopeless situation and eventually most of the accused duly signed both confessions, but as well as confessing, they were asked to name other people in the village who they knew also practised witchcraft. In sheer desperation to stop the torture, each of the accused provided several names of others, normally friends or neighbours, who were then brought to the tolbooth and subjected to the same process until they also confessed.

Once the confessions had been obtained, the ‘witches’ were burned at the stake in an area just outside of the village. The authorities, led by the local minister, Patrick Cowper, then went on to seize all possessions of the accused, including their houses, and the family would be billed for their relatives time held in captivity, the pricker’s time and the wood for the fire used to burn them! The good fortune that the initial person accused was wealthy, meaning the people she was likely to name as also being witches, would also be wealthy, ensured a sizeable income for the concerned authorities.

A few years ago a local historian, Leonard Low, wrote a book called The Weem Witch which gives the full account of the trials and as part of the publicity for the book, he started to run historical tours in the tower. It seems however this disturbed a presence within the tower, which is not happy about it. Camera batteries are known to drain in the tower, with some cameras simply malfunctioning and never working again. A male figure has been photographed standing in a group despite there being no men in the group and the spirit of a small girl has been witnessed many times on the stairs.

I had the opportunity to spend some time alone in the tower with a fellow investigator and we recorded a voice responding to our questions. We had been asking if whoever was in the tower objected to the tours taking place. Our voices are faint on the recording when a much clearer male voice speaks over us. It seems to say ‘Definitely.....too much talking.....’. We believe this to be whoever is still in the tower making it clear they do not like people being brought in to be told what happened there. A final word was not clear at the time, but we now believe this to be ‘Jesus’ but said in Latin.

The recording, looped to play 4 times, can be heard here:



G. Stewart

About the Author: 

 Greg Stuart is interested in the paranormal, he read many books on the topic and visited many reported haunted sites and participated in investigations. He writes short fictions. He likes to explore historical buildings and sites. He has recorded several tales of hauntings and also had his own unexplained experiences. 


More stories of haunted locations in Scotland are available in the e-book Scotland’s Hidden Hauntings and the paperback Scotland’s Haunted Places, both available on Amazon. Visit Greg’s Author page for more details: http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Stewart/e/B00924LCYI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1