File:Auld Toll, Tollcross - geograph.org.uk - 1316494.jpg

English: Auld Toll, Tollcross The Auld Toll Bar is a reminder of the existence of a toll-gate here when a new road was laid in 1792 between modern Tollcross junction and Morningside on the old Biggar Road in accordance with the 1755 Turnpike Act. Known as 'Wright's Toll', and often referred to as 'Toll-Cross', travellers paid two pence to pass and up to a shilling (twelve pence) for goods. Judging from the vehicle parked outside the Auld Toll today, it seems that one of the locals has worked out a way of not having to stagger home after an evening out. The house above belongs to a row of cottages in Leven Street that survive from the old village of Wrychtishousis. Most of the western half was demolished to clear the way for the road, but the eastern half was spared. Cottages in the street still known as Wrights' Houses (where the Golf Tavern stands) survived until their demolition in the 1970s. It is surmised that the origin of the name goes back to James IV's decree of 1508 which ordered the felling of trees on the Burgh Muir (now Bruntsfield Links). The timber-wrights, after whom the village presumably took its name, provided the wood that can be seen today in the many forestairs adorning houses in the Lawnmarket and West Bow area of Edinburgh's Old Town.