Topcliffe Toll Booth

Topcliffe Toll Booth is a historic building in Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, a village in England.

A single-storey toll booth was constructed in the 17th century, to collect tolls from the adjacent market. A local tradition claims that a ransom for Charles I of Great Britain was paid in the building to Scottish troops during the English Civil War. A second storey was added in the 19th century, and the lower storey was altered. The building was grade II listed in 1952.^[1][2] The building has served variously as a jail, a reading room, and a meeting place for the court leet.^[2][3] In 1968, there were plans to demolish the building to improve traffic flow, but these were not taken up.^[4] By 2004, the downstairs room was used for storage, and the upstairs room as a snooker club. That year, the parish council planned to convert it into a village hall with historical displays and tourist information.^[3]

The house is built of stone with quoins and a stone slate roof. It has two storeys and three bays. On the front are two doorways with plain lintels, and a similar doorway on the right return. The upper floor contains casement windows with wedge lintels, and at the rear a flight of 13 steps with a coped parapet leads up to a doorway with a wedge lintel.^[1][5]