Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

INVERNESS.
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gateways, hanging balconies, projecting towers, and
round turnpike stairs. Though a crowded winter-
seat of aristocracy, and packed with mansions, in the
Flemish style, belonging to the landed proprietors of
an extensive circumjacent country, the town — even
so late as the middle of last century — had few houses
which were not thatched with heath or straw, or
which contained ceiled or plastered rooms ; while, at
a still later date, it knew nothing of the luxuries
of municipal police. About 60 or 70 years ago,
the magistrates, in order to induce parties to edifice
the airy and modern thoroughfares, granted per-
petual feu-rights for very trilling sums, and urged
forward the erections by the most condescending
encouragements. As the last century closed, Provost
William Inglis, a patriotic and energetic citizen, who
died in 1801, achieved great improvements in mo-
dernizing and polishing the burgh, and strongly im-
pelled it toward its present position. In 1831, a pro-
cess was commenced, and soon afterwards was com-
pleted, of causewaying the carriage-ways with
granite, laying the side-paths with Caithness flag,
and ramifying the whole town with common sewers.
The cost of this great and beautifying improvement
exceeded £6,000, and was defrayed by an assessment
of 2| per cent, on house-rents. A suit of gas-works,
erected at the expense of £8,757, lights the town
with gas, — said to be the best in the kingdom ; and
water- works, which, along with the conveying pipes,
cost £4,872, afford an ample supply of water.
The public buildings of Inverness, though possess-
ing no remarkable features of elegance or beauty, are
both creditable and interesting. A suite of county
buildings, which crowns the Castle-hill, and was
erected, in 1835, at a cost of about £7,000, and after
a design by Mr. Burn of Edinburgh, strongly arrest
the eye of a stranger. The commanding site of the
edifices, the neatness of their architecture, their re-
semblance to a spacious English castle, and their
interior commodiousness and beauty, unite to render
them superior to most Scottish buildings of their
class At the corner of Church-street and High-
street stands the jail, surmounted by a remarkably
handsome spire 150 feet high. They were built in
1791, at the cost of about £3,400, only £1,800 of
which was expended on the jail. The spire resem-
bles that of St. Andrew's church in Edinburgh, and
was built by the same architect, but excels it in
symmetry, and is remarkably handsome. Its top,
however, was severely twisted by the earthquake of
1816, and is ragged and ruinous. The jail — though
a vast improvement when it was built, and pro-
nounced by the Old Statistical Account, " such as
would give pleasure to the benevolent Howard,"
has for many years been too small, admits of little or
no classification, is situated in a principal thorough-
fare, and has no open courts or facilities of any sort
for airing and exercise, or for classification. But for
6 or 7 years past measures have been in progress to
erect a new jail — which is here wanted, not merely
for the burgh or for Inverness-shire, but for the
northern counties — on a site on the Castle-hill, con-
tiguous to the County-buildings, and accordant with
them in greatness and tastefulness of design In
High-street, nearly opposite the head of Church-
street, stand, clustered in one edifice, the Town-
hall and the Exchange, an unornamented building,
erected in 1708. In front of it stands the ancient
cross of the town ; and at the base of this is a cu-
rious, blue, lozenge-shaped stone, reckoned the pal-
ladium of the burgh, and called Clach-na-cudden,
' the Stone of the tubs,' from its having been a noted
resting-place for the water-pitchers or deep tubs of
bygone generations of women when passing from the
river. In the front wall of the Exchange and Town-
house, the armorial bearings of the town — a shield
representing the Crucifixion, and supported by an
elephant and a camel, with the motto ' Concordia et
Fidelitas' — together with the royal arms, are beauti-
fully carved. In the town-hall are good portraits of
Sir John Barnard and Sir Hector Munro, benefac-
tors to the town, the former painted by Ramsay ; a
full-length portrait, by Syme of Edinburgh, of Pro-
vost Robertson of Aultnaskiach, hung up as a testi-
monial of respect by his fellow-citizens; and a copy
of the original portrait, by Ramsay, of the celebrated
Flora Maedonald, presented by Mr. Frazer of Madras,
a native of the town Near the head of Church-
street stands a high and spacious but clumsy and
heavy edifice, called the Northern Meeting-rooms,
built by subscription, and elegantly fitted up into a
ball-room and a dining-room, each 60 feet long and
30 wide, and respectively 20 and 18 feet high On
the north-east side of Academy-street stands the
Inverness Academy, an extensive erection, handsome
but not showy, opened, in 1792, for the education,
on a liberal scale, of the families of the upper classes
throughout the Northern Highlands. It has a large
pleasure-ground behind for the recreation of the
scholars ; and is distributed in the interior into class-
rooms for five masters, and a public hall embellished
with a bust, by Westmacott, of Hector Fraser, an
eminent teacher of Inverness, and with a masterly
paintingof the Holy Family variously ascribed to Sasso
Ferrato and to Perino de Vaga. The Academy was
erected by numerous and munificent subscriptions, is
upheld by a fund of upwards of £t>,000, besides an
annual grant of £70 from the town ; has a body of
directors who are incorporated by royal charter ;
and affords liberal training in all departments of a
commercial and a classical education, with the ele-
ments of mathematics and philosophy. The North-
ern institution for the promotion of science and
literature, established in 1825, have provided the
Academy with a valuable museum, and promise to
append to it lectureships in the physical sciences. —
The Old academy, or hospital, situated near the
lower end of Church-street, was bequeathed, in
1668, to the community by Provost Alexander
Dunbar ; and, since the transference of its funds, in
the form of the annual grant, to the New Academy,
it has been fitted up for a public library, a lady's
school, a soup-kitchen, and some other kindred pur-
poses. — On a tumulated part or swell of the bank
immediately south of the Castle-hill, and constitut-
ing the highest ground within the limits or the en-
virons of the boundaries, stands a neat and com-
manding edifice, very recently erected for the accom-
modation of various public charities of the burgh,
and surmounted by an octagonal tower, which ter-
minates in a dome, and is fitted up as an observatory.
The institutions which it accommodates are a school
for females, a female work-society, an infant-school
on the plan of Mr. Wilderspin, and a society for
giving clothes and blankets to the poor. — The cen-
tral or model-school of ' the Society for Educating
the poor in the Highlands,' instituted in 1818, — .
Raining's school, endowed by a bequest, in 1747,
of £1,000, — a large subscription-school for the poor
in the suburb of Merkinch, — and the retreats of some
of the more subordinate but useful schools of the
town, — are edifices which refresh the mind unspeak-
ably more by the associations which they suggest,
than if, with lower aims, or as the gathering-places
of fashionable dissipation, they were arrayed in the
most ornamental dresses of architecture — On the
left bank of the Ness. 3 furlongs above the old
bridge, stands the Infirmary of the northern counties,
built in 1S04, and including a Lunatic asylum. It
consists of a large central front and two wings, the