Patrick Couper's church, which is adjoined to the tolbooth tower, still stands as it was, with the same forbidding door to the totbooth cells. The door is studded, and still hides the horrors that were committed in there three hundred years ago.

There are four floors to the Tolbooth. The ground-floor room is the area set out and used as a jail. It has held many an unsavoury character, but in the course of our story its walls have held the soldiers who refused to go to war against Montrose, the witches of 1643-4 and the unfortunates of 1704-5, as well as the ringleaders of the mob who were originally accused of Janet's murder by the Council, then released surreptitiously by Patrick Couper. And of course his poor cow!

The entrance door here is the original. It is two inches thick, being solid timber and decorated with iron bolts to secure its sturdiness.

Walking in, the first thing in this room that grabbed my attention was the curved metal hook hanging from the wooden beam across the ceiling. Knowing what went on in here, it wasn't a pleasant sight to come across. I can find no reference to the Weem witches being subjected to any sort of treatment using this item, so perhaps it has had a more innocent use. In any case it seems to have been in there for centuries.

Thomas Brown died in this room, which today finds use as a council store room. It has barely been touched by modernisation. Only the introduction of a single lightbulb on the ceiling provides any evidence of the 20th century.

It is very dark, even with this lightbulb; and it has a small window that was reported to have been forcefully blocked by the authorities in the witch cases of 1704-5, the intention being to resist any visitations from the supposed witches' 'familiars', who could take the form of cats, mice or even flies.

Such was the superstition of the time. It only took flies lingering about the front door of the jail to give rise to accusations and fear, prompted by the minister, that the familiars were trying to reach the witches.

There were at times seven witches in this room, bleeding and lying in their own filth. Some stayed several months in this darkened hell before they were released. Flies were definitely regular visitors to this cramped living hell.

There was great fear over familiars visiting the witches, fear that the familiars could easily carry out the witches' commands, fear that a witch could bewitch someone else from the confinement of the cell. This was why the window was boarded up and the witches were kept in the dark.

Beyond the studded six-foot entrance door, the room is eight feet high and stands ten feet square with an arched ceiling. The walls are mostly constructed out of sandstone and in very good condition. The room has never been whitewashed or painted, just left as natural stone, as it was during 1704-5. The floor has been left as natural stone with no timber. There are several holes five inches in depth in the corners of the room where we can see that something was once held in place. These were holes for chains attached to a device to restrain the unfortunates in the cell when necessary. It was called the 'jougs', and was an iron collar worn about the neck and fastened to the wall. It was customary in Scotland for use on witches, and was very commonly used here.