Inverness
Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands.
Historically it served as the county town of the county of Inverness-shire. Inverness lies near two important battle sites: the 11th-century battle of Blàr nam Fèinne against Norway which took place on the Aird, and the 18th century Battle of Culloden which took place on Culloden Moor. It is the northernmost city in the United Kingdom and lies within the Great Glen at its north-eastern extremity where the River Ness enters the Beauly Firth.
With human settlement dating back to at least 5,800 BC, Inverness was an established self-governing settlement by the 6th century with the first Royal Charter being granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim around 1160. Inverness and Inverness-shire are closely linked to various influential clans, including Clan Mackintosh, Clan Fraser and Clan MacKenzie. Local clans unique to the city include Donnchaidh of Inshes, MacSheorsa of Castlehill, MacLean of Dochgarroch, Fraser of Leys and Kinmylies, Baillie of Dunain, Shaw of Essich, and Forbes of Culloden.
The population of Inverness grew from 40,969 in 2001 to 46,969 in 2012, according to World Population Review. The Greater Inverness area, including Culloden and Westhill, had a population of 56,969 in 2012. In 2016, it had a population of 63,320. Inverness is one of Europe's fastest growing cities, with a quarter of the Highland population living in or around it. In 2008, Inverness was ranked fifth out of 189 British cities for its quality of life, the highest of any Scottish city.
Prehistory and archaeology
Much of what is known about Inverness's prehistory comes from archaeological work that takes place before construction/development work as part of the planning process.Between 2009 and 2010, archaeological work in advance of the creation of flood defences to the south of the city at Knocknagael Farm by GUARD Archaeology discovered an archaeological site that showed humans had been living in the Inverness area from at least 6500 BC, the Late Mesolithic period. That same site showed people living/working in the area from the mid-7th millennium BC into the Late Iron Age with most activity taking place in the Early Neolithic. The archaeologists also found a piece of flint from Yorkshire that showed that people in Inverness may have been trading with Yorkshire during the Neolithic.
Between 1996 and 1997, CFA Archaeology undertook excavations of crop marks in the west of Inverness in advance of the construction of a retail and business park. A Bronze Age cemetery was discovered in 1996 and in 1997 the archaeologists found the remains of a Bronze Age settlement and an Iron Age settlement, with an ironsmith. It is one of the earliest examples of iron smithing in Scotland. The Iron Age settlement had Roman brooches from the AD 1st–2nd centuries, indicating trade with the Roman Empire. Similarly, the Bronze Age site showed signs of metal production: finds included ceramic piece-moulds designed for the casting of Late Bronze Age leaf-shaped swords. A silver chain dating to 500–800 CE was found just to the south of Torvean, during the excavation of the Caledonian Canal, in 1809.
History
Picts
Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts. In AD 569, it was visited by St Columba with the intention of converting the Pictish king Brude, who is supposed to have resided in the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrig, on the western edge of the city. A church or a monk's cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael's Mount, a mound close to the river, now the site of the Old High Church and graveyard.Medieval
The first royal charter was granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim in the 12th century. The Gaelic king Mac Bethad Mac Findláich whose 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare's largely fictionalised play Macbeth, held a castle within the city where he ruled as Mormaer of Moray and Ross.Inverness Castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III of Scotland, after he had razed to the ground the castle in which Mac Bethad mac Findláich had, according to much later tradition, murdered Máel Coluim's father Donnchad, and which stood on a hill around 1 km to the north-east.
The strategic location of Inverness has led to many conflicts in the area. Reputedly there was a battle in the early 11th century between Malcolm III and Thorfinn the Mighty at Blar Nam Feinne, to the southwest of the city.
Inverness had four traditional fairs, including Legavrik or "Leth-Gheamhradh", meaning midwinter, and Faoilleach. William the Lion granted Inverness four charters, by one of which it was created a royal burgh. Of the Dominican friary founded by Alexander III in 1233, only one pillar and a worn knight's effigy survive in a secluded graveyard near the town centre.
Medieval Inverness suffered regular raids from the Hebrides, particularly by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 15th century. In 1187, one Dòmhnall Bàn led islanders in a battle at Torvean against men from Inverness Castle led by the governor's son, Donnchadh Mac an Tòisich. Both leaders were killed in the battle, and Dòmhnall Bàn is said to have been buried in a large cairn near the river, close to where the silver chain was found. Local tradition says that the citizens fought off the Clan Donald in 1340 at the Battle of Blairnacoi on Drumderfit Hill, north of Inverness across the Beauly Firth. In the late 14th-early 15 century, Inverness was a symbol of the Duke of Albany's power. On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald of Islay took the town and burned the bridge over the River Ness. Sixteen years later, James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were arrested for defying the king's command. Clan Munro defeated Clan Mackintosh in 1454 at the Battle of Clachnaharry just west of the city. Clan Donald and their allies stormed the castle during the Raid on Ross in 1491.
Post-medieval
In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Mary, Queen of Scots, was denied admittance into Inverness Castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, and whom she afterwards caused to be hanged. The Clan Munro and Clan Fraser of Lovat took the castle for her. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development.Beyond the then northern limits of the town, Oliver Cromwell built a citadel capable of accommodating 1,000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration. A clock tower today called Cromwell's Tower is located in the Citadel area of Inverness but was actually part of a former hemp cloth factory built c. 1765.
Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. In early May, it was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch. The town was rescued by Viscount Dundee, the overall Jacobite commander, when he arrived with the main Jacobite army, although he required Inverness to profess loyalty to King James VII.
18th century
In 1715, the Jacobites occupied the royal fortress as a barracks. In 1727, the government built the first Fort George here but, in 1746, it surrendered to the Jacobites and they blew it up. Culloden Moor lies nearby and was the site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which ended the Jacobite rising of 1745–46.In 1783, the year that saw the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Highland Clearances in Inverness-shire, Coinneach MacChoinnich, a poet from Clan MacKenzie who was born at Castle Heather, then known as Castle Leather, composed the Gaelic poem The Lament of the North. In the poem, MacChionnich mocks the Highland gentry for becoming absentee landlords, evicting their tenants en masse in favour of sheep, and of "spending their wealth uselessly", in London. He accuses King George III both of tyranny and of steering the ship of state into shipwreck. MacChionnich also argues that truth is on the side of George Washington and the Continental Army and that the Scottish Gaels would do well to emigrate to the New World before the King and the landlords take every farthing they have left.
Industrial Revolution, the World Wars and end of the millennium
In 1855, the railways first came to Inverness with the Inverness and Nairn Railway, which ended up getting absorbed into the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway by 1861. The Loch Gorm railway works was built soon after the line, in 1857, which built locomotives for the Highland Railway which formed in 1865, when the I&AJR and the I&PJR merged, connecting rural towns in the North and East, such as Wick, Thurso and Kyle of Lochalsh to the rest of the network across the United Kingdom. The Far North Line would become crucial come the start of World War One, as coal trains took priority to provide fuel to the Royal Navy's Home Fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The Loch Gorm works had become redundant prior to WWI and was delegated to a maintenance facility, a duty which it provides to this day.During World War One, the U.S. Navy opened a naval base US Naval Base 18 at the Muirtown Basin on the Caledonian Canal. It was a final stage in constructing anti-submarine mines for the North Sea Mine Barrage, a 230 mile long and 25 mile wide minefield between Orkney and Norway, with USNB 18 contributing at least 70,000 mines. This base was also connected to the rail network with large sidings temporarily laid over a field behind the nearby Merkinch Primary School. This yard was marshalled by a LB&SCR A1 class 'Terrier' No.38 "Millwall", loaned by the Admiralty, and sold on to the Glen Albyn distillery following the conflicts end. The canal was also used heavily by fishing vessels as a shortcut from East to West in order to dodge the Imperial German Navy U-boats patrolling the North Coast.
The Rose Street drill hall was completed in around 1908. On 7 September 1921, the first UK Cabinet meeting to be held outside London took place in the Inverness Town House, when David Lloyd George, on holiday in Gairloch, called an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Ireland. The Inverness Formula composed at this meeting was the basis of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Prior to World War Two, air travel came to Inverness, in the form of the Longman Aerodrome in 1933, becoming the hub for Highland Airways, providing connections to Orkney and Wick, however this didn't last long as Highland Airways was absorbed into Scottish Airways in 1938, with the Aerodrome being requisitioned by the Royal Air Force after the declaration of war on Germany the following year, forming RAF Inverness. Following the war, the airport returned to civilian use, before shutting down in 1947 over safety concerns due to its size; it moved to the former RAF Dalcross, where it remains to day, with the former airfield quickly being swallowed up under an industrial estate.
Again, Inverness played its part in a global conflict as the Home Fleet returned to Scapa Flow, and coal trains took priority going North. In January 1943, the Luftwaffe charted the area however, incorrectly identified the Air Force Base as a seaplane base, saving Inverness from any Luftwaffe air raids, becoming one of only a few towns in Scotland to survive the war undamaged. The closest Luftwaffe bombs fell was at the British Aluminium Works at Foyers, approximately 11 miles south-south-east along Loch Ness. This resulted in the deaths of 52 year old fitter, Archibald MacDonald, directly and causing 69 year old furnaceman, Murdo MacLeod, a fatal heart attack, becoming the only civilian fatalities to enemy action within the Inverness area.
Following VE Day, Inverness's industry went into decline. The Caledonian Canal was long obsolete, and the danger to fishing vessels around the North Coast by enemy hands was no longer there. With the rise of road transport, the Beeching Cuts rolled back a lot of Inverness's railway infrastructure, with the roundhouse being demolished in 1962, and the Far North and the Kyle of Lochalsh only avoided closure by to fierce resistance by residents.
In September 1952, Inverness regained national attention, in tragic circumstances as World Land Speed record holder, John Cobb, was killed in an attempt at the World Water Speed record on Loch Ness, after his craft Crusader, powered by a de Havilland Ghost jet engine, crashed and disintegrated while travelling at over 200 mph.