The Turnpike House, Dumfries

This pencil and wash drawing of the Turnpike House may have been copied from the original drawing of the time by John McCormick.  The Turnpike House stood on the High Street between Bank Street and Assembly Street in Dumfries.   During the seventeenth century it was owned by the Sharpes of Hoddom, and was known as "Hoddam's Stone House".  Later, Sir Robert Grierson of Lag lived there from 1720 to 1733.  Grierson, the persecutor of the covenanters died in this house.  According to tradition his body was so large that it could not be brought down the turnpike stairway which gave the house its name, so the stonework between two windows was removed and the coffin lowered down by ropes.  After Grierson’s death in 1733 his widow - the Lady Henrietta Douglas, sister of William, first Duke of Queensbury - continued to reside in the house until her death in 1739.  The house was demolished in 1826.  The drawing shows the three storey house with a section jutting from the frontage.