Inverness
The
name of this town in Gaelic is Inbhir Nis and its population is more
than 41.000 inhabitants. Inverness is the capital of the Highlands and
the administrative centre of Highland Council and was designated a city
in 2000. Inverness is twinned with Augsburg (www.augsburg.de)
in Germany and La Baule in France (www.labaule.tm.fr).
The River Ness flows through the city.
Historically Inverness was important in the Cromwellian and Hanoverian
governments' attempts to control the Highlands. The castle, which
dominated the town was destroyed in the 1745 Jacobite Rising and
eventually replaced by William's Burn's castellated Sheriff Court
(1833-5).
You
may see also the statue of Flora MacDonald, which memorial is in the
Isle of Skye. Flora MacDonald (1722-90) is considered as the most
Scottish romantic heroine (www.heritage.scotsman.com)
who, after the Jacobite Uprising, led Charles Edward Steward (Bonnie
Prince Charlie), disguised as her maid, to safety in Skye. As a result
she was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but released in 1747. Married
in1750 to Alan Macdonald of Kingsburgh, Skye, she emigrated to North
Carolina in 1774 but returned to Scotland in 1779 after her husband was
captured fighting the Loyalist side in the American War of Independence.
The
town has an quite impressive architectural character in late Georgian
and Victorian styles, notably Thomas Mackenzie's Bank of Scotland (1847)
and Alexander Ross's twin towered Episcopal Cathedral of St-Andrew
(1866).
Inverness is now a fast growing business and tourist centre. (www.aboutinverness.co.uk)
Near Inverness on the road to the Airport, you may stop to admire The
Clava Cairns or Bulnaraun of Clava, one of the best preserved Bronze Age
burial sites in Scotland. The site consist of 3 small burial chambers,
aligned on a North-East-South-West axis. Each cairn consists of a
multitude of large water-worn pebbles and boulders, piled in a bun
shape, with an outer kerb of larger stones around which stand a stone
circle.
La Baule and Augsburg are the 2 German and French cities Inverness is
twinned with.