I have lived in the Highlands for most of my life and one of the positives to being required ‘stay at home’ it is you have the opportunity to lift up your eyes and explore what’s on your doorstep. This year I have walked the Caledonian canal (well the 1.5 miles of the Inverness city section anyway), walked Craig Phahdraig to the Pictish hill fort of king Bridei mac Maelchon, ‘just visiting’ Dornoch Jail, walked to the Lochan Uaine near Aviemore and the Corriehalloch gorge on the way to Ullapool and recently, thanks to a CIOB webinar how many times Inverness Castle has been built, rebuilt, re-purposed and retrofitted.
Inverness Castle stands proudly on Castle Hill (aptly named!), where a succession of castles has stood since 1057. The first castle said to have been built by Malcolm II of Scotland and it was transformed from a earth and timber construction to stone in the 12th Century with the first slighting in 1308 by King Robert the Bruce to prevent it falling into enemy hands.
Attacked by Donald, Lord of the Isles in 1410, rebuilt by the Earl of Mar in 1412, attacked again by the MacDonald’s of Islay in 1455, 1462 and 1491, then in 1562 the clans Fraser and Munro stormed the castle for Mary Queen of Scots. In 1649 the castle was slighted in retreat by Charles II. And so it went on, sieged, raided, destroyed and rebuilt many times over the centuries until finally being razed to the ground in 1746 following the Battle of Culloden (rumour has it the officer who lit the fuse was killed in the blast but his dog survived despite blown 100m across the river!). A new fortification known as Fort George was built 7 miles away near Ardersier. The old castle remained derelict for nearly 80 years but if you look closely, parts of the old battlements can be still be seen today ‘repurposed’ in the houses and grounds along the River Ness.
The castle as it is viewed today it not as old as it looks, it is the work of several nineteenth-century architects. In 1836, architect William Burn (architect of St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh and whose father, Robert, of the Nelson Monument on Calton Hill) designed the current castle as a court building. In 1846 Thomas Brown II designed the District Court in a more ‘extravently machiolated’ way with an octagonal north-west tower and northern section being added as a jail in 1848 (the purple section of the floorplan). The modern castle is still like a fortress, with several towers of different kinds (rectangular, square, octagonal and round), parapets and battlements. Not forgetting the esplanade statue (1899) of Flora Macdonald guarding the castle, the young woman who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from Scotland after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 (the last battle to be fought on UK soil!).
In 1901, after the building of a new jail at Porterfield, that part of the castle became the headquarters of the Inverness Police whilst the courthouse became the local Council Chambers. After local government reorganisation in the 1970s it became the District Court and continued until March 2020 when the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service vacated Inverness Castle to Scotland’s first purpose built justice centre on Longman Road to the north of the city.
Long-term plans to turn the castle into a tourist attraction are already underway. The Castle project will be a gateway for Highland tourism and is a vital part of the regeneration of Inverness city centre. The project forms part of the Inverness and Highland City-Region deal. The City-Region deal is a joint initiative supported by up to £315m investment from the UK and Scottish governments, The Highland Council, HIE and University of the Highlands and Islands, aimed at stimulating sustainable regional economic growth. £15m from the City Region Deal has been secured for the Castle Project.
The centre will aim to attract new and repeat visitors to the area, it will include:
- The castle viewpoint (the north tower) being refurbished (already complete)
- The wider redeveloped castle opened up as a “must-see” visitor attraction
- Information and exhibits and interpretive programmes
- Innovative digital and multimedia exhibits
During the past year, the initial stage of the project saw LDN Architects delivering the project masterplan, including identification and exploration of development opportunities within the site. Whilst master planning, market testing and technical studies are underway, little detail is available but retrofitting these historic buildings is a complex balancing act, in which many criteria are balanced against one another in order to achieve continued, long-term use of the building i.e. energy consumption and conservation are often the dominant criteria but a number of others are also important, including the needs of the building fabric, occupants, and collections, as well as economics, embodied energy, and climate change.
Stuart McKellar of LDN architects describes the principle challenges of retrofitting a Category A listed building as being:
- Obtaining adequate survey date – knowing the make-up and condition of the building behind the finishes. At Inverness Castle, we have the luxury of currently undertaking an Enabling Contract, whereby these investigations can take place.
- Achieving Universal Accessibility standards – often times difficult due to a tendency for older buildings to be planned over multiple levels with little thought to clear widths and level access.
- Improving the thermal envelope – solid stone construction and prized interiors often make this a challenge. We tend to follow a hierarchical priority list of improving the insulating properties of floors, roofs, windows and walls.
- Installing modern day efficient services – again, solid stone construction and a lack of service voids can make installing modern services a real challenge. It requires a methodical approach and the use of unconventional service ducts, such as chimney flues, skirting boards and other small voids.
And so, Inverness Castle history continues, hopefully on a more sustainable, inclusive way for generations to come. My thanks to High Life Highland , CIOB and LDN architects.
John Maclennan, CSIC Innovation Manager
machicolation
noun
- (in medieval fortifications) an opening between the supporting corbels of a projecting parapet or the vault of a gate, through which stones or burning objects could be dropped on attackers.
- a projecting structure containing a series of machicolations.
Caledonian Canal https://www.visitscotland.com/info/towns-villages/caledonian-canal-p1422381
Craig Phadraig https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lochness/craig-phadrig.shtml
Dornoch Jail https://visitdornoch.com/about-us/
Green Loch https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34145
Correishalloch https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/corrieshalloch-gorge
