From Cells to Suites: The Court Residence and Linlithgow’s Violent Past

The Court Residence stands at 1 Court Square on Linlithgow’s historic High Street, a handsome Victorian building that served as the town’s Sheriff Court for over a century. Today’s guests sleep in spaces once dedicated to the administration of justice, their accommodation carved from courtrooms where sentences were handed down and cells where the accused awaited their fate. The building’s transformation from courthouse to aparthotel represents the latest chapter in a site steeped in Scottish history, including one of the most notorious political assassinations of the sixteenth century.

Origins

The Linlithgow Sheriff Court was constructed in 1863 to designs by the Edinburgh architectural partnership of Thomas Brown II and James Maitland Wardrop. Both men were prolific designers of public buildings across Scotland, and their courthouse reflected the Victorian confidence in civic institutions. The building presented an appropriately authoritative face to the High Street, its architecture communicating the solemnity and permanence of the legal system it housed.

Linlithgow required proper court facilities befitting its status as a royal burgh and the administrative centre of West Lothian. The town had long held significance in Scottish affairs. Linlithgow Palace, visible from the courthouse windows, served as a principal residence of the Stewart monarchs. Mary, Queen of Scots was born within its walls on 8 December 1542. The palace dominated the town’s skyline and its history.

Through the Centuries

The original 1863 structure soon proved insufficient for the demands placed upon it. In 1875, a single-storey cell block was added to the rear of the building. This extension provided secure accommodation for prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing, a grim necessity that the architects had perhaps underestimated. The cells were functional spaces, designed for security rather than comfort, with heavy doors and small windows that admitted minimal light.

The Sheriff Court continued to function throughout the twentieth century, processing the criminal cases and civil disputes of West Lothian’s residents. Generations of local families had cause to pass through its doors, whether as defendants, witnesses, jurors, or legal professionals. The building accumulated over a century of human drama within its walls - acquittals and convictions, justice served and justice denied.

When the court eventually closed, the building faced an uncertain future. Historic structures of this type often struggle to find new purposes. The conversion to an aparthotel in the 2010s preserved the building’s fabric while giving it renewed life. Historic Environment Scotland recognises its significance with a Category B listing (LB37400), acknowledging its architectural and historical importance.

Notable Guests and Events

The most infamous event associated with this site predates the courthouse by nearly three centuries. On 23 January 1570, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and Regent of Scotland, rode through Linlithgow’s High Street. He never completed his journey.

James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh waited in a house belonging to Archbishop John Hamilton, positioned at a window overlooking the street. As the Regent passed below, Hamilton fired. The shot proved fatal. Regent Moray became the first head of government anywhere in the world to be assassinated by gunfire. A plaque on the Court Residence commemorates this event, marking the approximate location where the shot was taken.

The assassination was no random act of violence. It grew from the tangled politics of the Scottish Reformation and the civil war between supporters of the exiled Mary, Queen of Scots and those who backed her infant son James VI. Regent Moray had been instrumental in forcing Mary’s abdication. Hamilton held a personal grudge as well - his wife had been mistreated following the confiscation of their estates. Politics and revenge combined with deadly effect on that January day.

The Dark History

The courthouse itself accumulated its own dark history through decades of judicial proceedings. The cell block added in 1875 held men and women facing serious charges, individuals whose fates would be determined in the courtroom above. The walls absorbed the anxiety of the accused, the grief of victims’ families, and the weight of verdicts pronounced.

Capital punishment had largely moved to central prisons by the time this courthouse was built, but the building nonetheless processed cases involving violent crime, theft, and the full spectrum of human transgression. Every courthouse carries this burden of accumulated suffering and judgement.

The proximity to Linlithgow Palace adds another layer of historical tragedy. The palace fell into ruin after fires in the eighteenth century, most significantly in 1746 when government troops quartered there allowed a fire to spread unchecked. The building that had witnessed royal births and housed monarchs became a roofless shell.

Architectural Heritage

The Court Residence retains the solid Victorian character of its original construction. Thomas Brown II and James Maitland Wardrop designed a building intended to project authority and permanence. The conversion to residential use has preserved key architectural features while adapting the interior spaces for modern accommodation.

The Category B listing from Historic Environment Scotland recognises buildings of regional or more than local importance, or major examples of a particular period, style, or building type. The former Sheriff Court meets these criteria through its architectural quality and its place in Linlithgow’s civic history.

The cell block, with its more utilitarian construction, presents particular challenges and opportunities for adaptive reuse. These spaces designed to confine now serve as part of a hospitality offering - a transformation that speaks to changing social functions and the flexibility of historic buildings when thoughtfully converted.

The Haunted Legacy

The Court Residence sits opposite Linlithgow Palace, where reports of a blue-robed female apparition have persisted for generations. Local tradition identifies this figure as Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots and Regent of Scotland from 1554 to 1560. Witnesses describe a dense, blue-grey lady walking from the palace entrance towards St Michael’s Parish Church. Some report an accompanying scent of perfume.

Queen Margaret’s Bower, a viewing platform at the palace, is associated with a separate apparition - sometimes identified as Margaret Tudor, wife of James IV. The palace cellars and walkways facing the loch generate their own reports of footsteps and voices.

The violent death of Regent Moray on the High Street, the accumulated weight of judicial proceedings in the courthouse, and the proximity to the haunted palace create a potent combination. Guests at the Court Residence sleep in a building surrounded by centuries of royal drama, political assassination, and the restless echoes of those who sought or received justice within these walls.

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Court Residence stands as a living monument to West Lothian’s rich and sometimes dark history.