These are from Wigtown. The town council used these to check that shopkeepers gave their customers a fair deal. They are 300 years old.

• Burgh measures
• 1710
• Wigtown, Wigtownshire
• One of the earliest surviving sets of burgh measures in Scotland.

These bronze vessels form one of the most complete sets of Queen Anne measures surviving in Scotland.

Nineteen sets were distributed throughout Scotland under the terms of the Act of Union of 1707. This called for the English measure to be used throughout the newly formed United Kingdom of Great Britain.

By the early 18th century there was already widespread use of the English measure, especially with merchants and traders in Lothian and the Borders. Elsewhere the Scottish measure continued to be used well into the mid-nineteenth century.

A selection of the original measures is on display in the foyer of Wigtown library.

In the collection of Stranraer Museum.