Invernesshire History & Information
Inverness natural advantages have for long made Inverness the centre of a wide and distinctive region, and it is now generally and fittingly recognized as the
'capital' of the Highlands: it is indeed the headquarters of the Highland Region, the largest in Scotland.
It lies in a level plain at the best crossing-place of the short river that flows out of Lochness and forms the northern end of glen more Albin.
Easily accessible from the sea and by air, it has become the
focal point of the road and rail system in the north where the
main routes from the south across the mountains and from the
east along the Moray Firth coast converge and continue west wards and northwards into the heart of the Northern Highlands.
This strategic position led to more permanent
settlement earlier than has been found in the surrounding country. Carved stones, burial cairns, and hill-top forts remain to show that the site was occupied long before written history: the 'boar
stone' at Knocknagael and the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrick are among the most notable relics of their kind in Scotland, and a ring of monoliths at Druidtemple
Farm near Leys overlooks the town from the sloping ground to the
south When St Columba visited King Brude in a.d. 565, this was the capital of the Pictish kingdom, and by the 12th cent, a chartered burgh had been established, with a
trading community living in the shelter of a royal castle. Macbeth may have lived in the old castle, which has long since disappeared, but his predecessor, King Duncan, did not die there; however, the red stone product of the early Victorian era may occupy
the same commanding position as the original castle held above the river crossing.
And so it is with the bridges, ancient and modern: a structure of oak, which is the earliest known, was destroyed by
the Lord of the Isles (Donald of harlaw) in 1411: a stone bridge of seven arches, shown in many old prints of Inverness, stood for a century and a half before being swept away by a great flood in
1849: and the suspension bridge which succeeded it was replaced in 1961 by a graceful triple-span bridge. Most of the town's old buildings have also been superseded: the oldest.
Queen Mary's House in Bridge Street - a
great deal altered since the visit in 1562 which its name recalls - now faces the latest feature, a typical town-centre
redevelopment such as sprang up all over the country in the 1960s. An isolated clock tower is all that is left of Cromwell's star-shaped fortress by the R. Ness. Abertarff House (early 17th-cent.),
Dunbar's Hospital (1668). the old High Church (1772 with earlier clock tower and spire), and the Steeple
(1791). all in Church Street, are reminders of earlier days, and Union Street, Queensgate,
Station Square, and part of Academy Street, all designed by Alexander Ross of Inverness, retain
some of the formal dignity of late Victorian architecture.
In the spiky Gothic Town House (1878), representing the period's more fanciful moods, members of the British Cabinet met in 1921 under Lloyd George to consider the Irish Treaty. The riverside presents a notable skyline of church spires of various denominations, and St Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral (1866-9) is the
centre of the modern bishopric of Moray, Ross, and Nairn. The main part of the town and the shopping centre lie near the river, and the entrance from the E. is confined by an escarpment from which the Cameron Barracks (until recently a regimental depot) and other buildings look northwards, with
a magnificent view over the sea to the black isle and Ben Wyvis, and
westwards to the hills beyond Beauly.
The harbour, which occupies the right bank of the river below the Waterloo Bridge (1896), at one time had regular passenger connections with ports in the South, and it still carries on a considerable commercial traffic. The municipal airport on the Longman (now an industrial estate) has been replaced by the airport at Dalcross. 7 miles east of the burgh. Inverness is not predominantly a manufacturing town, but it has several new as well as
old-established industries. A firm that exports welding equipment to many parts of the world was responsible for the 'Pluto' pipeline across the English Channel in the Second World War.
The town is a
shopping, distributing, and marketing centre for a wide area. Particularly since the First World War. there has been
an increasing tendency to locate in Inverness more Government and ancillary offices, for the Highlands and the North
of Scotland. This trend has accelerated in recent years and received a sharp fillip with the basing of so many
North Sea oil activities in the Region, at NIGG. ARDERSIER, KISHORN, to name only a few.
Apart from official administration. Inverness has a special place as a centre of professional life. It has been the setting for two General Assemblies
(1845 and 1888), and is the place where the High Court of Justiciary sits twice a year, and the
head town of the Sheriffdom of Inverness-shire, Moray, Nairnshire, and Ross and Cromarty. An important educational centre, it was one of the towns proposed for the establishment of a new university; the Royal Academy, dating from 1792. has origins going back to the foundation of a Dominican Priory in 1233; the North of Scotland
College of Agriculture branch at Drummondhill (1955), and the Inverness Technical College at the
Longman (1960), attract students from a wide area.
 |
