Inverness Town House Tours

When writing history, there is always the problem of focus; what does the narrative lens point at? Drift can ruin the trajectory and turn the tightest yarn of a city, town village into a strung together assemblage of tales, linked only by a vague sense of place; lacking the cohesion and trajectory required to be truly gripping.

In Inverness, no such problem rears its head, because the story of Inverness is the story of the Town House. From the property behind The Exchange, to the home of a modern Scottish city, the Town House is as indexical as they come, and of course, all this belongs to you. Highland Council now offers visitors guided tours round the nooks and crannies of the building, to find out where the stories lie and to understand the city that much better.

The Highland Council runs the guided tours throughout the year, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2.30 for at least an hour and a half. For that time you will be given privileged access and interpretation to the building; its rooms, and artefacts, heroes and villains, decisions good and bad that have made it the landmark that it is today. Stories through the eyes of residents and visitors, who have affected the way we see the city, and by extension the Highlands. What a treasure house it is…

Portraits by Henry Raeburn, Sir George Reid, David Alison and Robert Innes capture the likenesses of past provosts, important men of their day, now all but forgotten, save on street signs; their beetling brows caught on canvas. Men like Duncan Forbes, Provost from 1625 – 1627, the first Forbes of Culloden, proud in his armour. Dr. John Inglis Nicol, provost from 1840-1843. A man of science, who shrugged off talk of “ressurectionist” activities to devote his medical talents to the well-being of the town. He died of cholera, caught in the course of his public health work.

In addition to Provosts, there are paintings of Queen Anne,  the engineer Thomas Telford, and a curio “The Holy Family”, a 16^th Century oil of the Central Italian School, once erroneously attributed to Sassoferatto, but now reckoned to precede him by half a century.

Sculpture too, furnishes the riches of The Town House. There are classical style busts of former provosts and dignitaries, along with more modern, curious items. The Horses Head, a gift from the town of Augsburg, Germany celebrates the towns’ twinning in 1986. It is a cast of a statue of the head of Emperor Hadrian’s Horse, once a prominent feature of that cities public art.

One claim to fame that the Town House has is that it was the only place that the UK cabinet has ever met outside of London. On 7^th September, 1921, PM Lloyd George called his people together in Inverness. There, they developed the “Inverness Formula”, the treaty designed to bring about the “Irish Free State”. This historic occasion is commemorated in stained glass in the Council Chamber.

Where would the story of Inverness be without Jacobitism? A portrait of Forbes of Culloden, (1685 – 1747) the loyalist organiser, shares wall space with Jacobite catalyst, James Fraser of Castle Leathers, as well as more famous heroes, Charles Edward Stewart and Flora McDonald.