Report upon the Bridge Custom, May 1854

The report reviews the tolls people paid to take goods and animals over the bridges across the River Nith in Dumfries.   When the original wooden Devorgilla’s Bridge was built in the 1200s tolls were collected by the Franciscan monks of Greyfriars Monastery, Dumfries.   In 1623 the town was given the right to collect the tolls. Some of the money was used to maintain Devorgilla’s Bridge, which by then had been rebuilt in stone.   In 1794 the volume of traffic had increased to such an extent that the town built the New Bridge or Buccleuch Street Bridge, and began collecting tolls for crossing it.