Inverness Town House
Inverness Town House

10 fascinating facts about… Inverness

August 21, 2019 / Kenny Smith /
August 21, 2019 |

Think of Inverness, and you’re more than likely to associate it with the nearby loch, and its mythical monster.

Inverness-shire comprises an area of about 4,211 square miles, and includes the islands of Skye, Harris, the Uists and Benbecula and Barra in the Western Isles. The county stretches from Inverness in the north to Loch Leven in the south, and from the Cairngorms in the east to Uig, on Skye, in the west. Lochaber also forms a signifi cant part of the county.

Inverness is an ancient settlement. It is said that in the 6th century St Columba visited the Pictish King Brude at his fortress there, and it was here, on the site of Auld Castlehill, that Macbeth was supposed to have murdered King Duncan.

Here we present 10 fascinating facts about the city.

An unrepealed 1750s bye-law entitles residents of Inverness to a free set of bagpipes on their 10th birthday.

At over 1000 feet, Loch Morar is the deepest lake in Britain.

During WWII a Wellington bomber crashed into Loch Ness.

Inverness Town House

In 1921, Inverness Town House hosted the only meeting of the cabinet ever to have been held outside London.

Loch Ness holds more fresh water than all the reservoirs and lakes in England and Wales combined.

Boleskine House, on the shores of Loch Ness, was the home of occultist Aleister Crowley between 1899 and 1913.

Corrimony Cairn, in Glen Urquhart, built about 2,000BC, was excavated in 1952 and is a very well preserved example of a passage grave.

Inverness only gained its city status in 2001 after being chosen as one of the ‘Millennium Cities’.

Loch Ruthven is home to a breeding population of rare Slavonian Grebes.

In 1562, Mary, Queen of Scots was refused entry to Inverness castle by its governor, whose family had had a disagreement with the Queen. Mary found other accommodation and the governor was subsequently hanged.

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