This unique, four-hundred-year-old market cross once sat at the centre of the thriving little medieval village of Preston (or Priest’s Town) which had been given burgh status in 1552 and was wholly separate from “the Pans” of Preston, which was further down the East Loan along the shore of the Firth. Once surrounded by homes, shops, workshops, trading booths and possibly a small medieval church, the Mercat Cross and village of Preston all sat within the shifting shadows of the nearby imposing medieval Tower you will visit next.

Constructed in 1617, the octagonal structure would have formed a robust centre-piece for weekly markets and the massive annual fair on St Jerome’s day (the second Thursday of October), when hundreds would have gathered for the festivities from all over the county. It contains a single room, rumoured to have been the village gaol for local miscreants following the falling out of use of the pit prison in the nearby Tower. A staircase leads up to a parapet from which important proclamations and other news would be bellowed by a local worthy after attracting attention by ringing a bell or banging a drum, a tradition that carried on well into the 19th century.

Some twenty feet above the parapet, atop its stone column, sits the national animal of Scotland, the mythical Unicorn. Rather than be chained with an ordinary collar, it wears a royal crowned around its throat and clutches between its hooves a shield emblazoned with a lion rampant, the symbol of Scotland’s royal family. It is arguably the finest historic market cross in the country still in its original location and it was used as the inspiration for the 19th century reconstruction of the market cross in Edinburgh. It is now in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.