The Tolbooth

Background and context
The Blend

The Tolbooth celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2007.

Background and context

The Tolbooth opened its doors in 2002 as Stirling’s venue for music and art, after the historic building’s restoration and redesign by award-winning architect Richard Murphy, funded by a £3,100,000 award from the Scottish Arts Council's Lottery fund.

Located in the centre of Stirling’s old town, the Tolbooth has retained its importance in the city’s cultural life.  Throughout its history, it has functioned as a court-house and jail, clock-tower, and even hosted a parliament during the reign of James VI.  The Grade A-listed building was extended during its restoration, but has retained many of its original features, such as the main auditorium’s dome ceiling.

State of the art technology was incorporated into the redesign, and the eight-storey building is multi-purpose, functioning as a venue, conference facility and education centre.  It also has a restaurant and café/bar, as well as a recording studio. The Tolbooth is the home of Stirling Council’s Arts and Events team, which organises a year-round programme of performances, courses, children's classes and adult's classes, arts development and festivals.

The Tolbooth celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2007, and in March Stirling’s annual roots music festival, The Blend, is also five years old.  Two other Tolbooth events celebrate significant anniversaries in 2007: Le Weekend, Scotland’s longest-running festival of experimental music, is ten in May and The Changing Room, Stirling’s contemporary gallery completes its first decade in September.

The Blend

For the first time in its five year history, The Blend is expanding beyond Stirling.  This year, Rural Blend kicks off the festival with three days of performances in Killin (Saturday 3 March), Brig O’ Turk (Friday 9 March) and Balfron (Saturday 10 March).  The programme then runs at the Tolbooth from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 March.

Artists appearing at this year’s festival include:

Free Blend sessions take place throughout the programme with:

Other festival events include free Late Night Blend with DJ Dolphin Boy, the Friday Night Fling, and Come & Try workshops for children and adults in fiddle, song & dance, pipes, whistle, guitar and step-dance.

To find out more visit The Tolbooth website and The Blend website.

The restoration and re-design of the Stirling Tolbooth received funding from the National Lottery through the Scottish Arts Council.