Visit Inverness Places

Welcome to Visit Inverness Places
The Walkfo guide to things to do & explore in Inverness

  

Inverness Places Overview: History, Culture & Facts about Inverness

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Inverness history

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Picts

Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts, and was visited by St Columba in AD 569. A church or a monk’s cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael’s Mount.

Medieval

Inverness Castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III (Malcolm III) of Scotland. Mac Bethad Mac Findláich’s 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The city suffered regular raids from the Western Isles, particularly by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles.

Post-medieval

Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. It was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch. The only surviving modern remnant is a clock tower.

18th and 19th centuries

In 1783, the year that saw the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Highland Clearances in Inverness-shire, Cionneach MacCionnich (1758-1837) composed the Gaelic poem The Lament of the North. In the poem, he mocks the Highland gentry for becoming absentee landlords, evicting their tenants en masse in favor of sheep.

20th and 21st centuries

The Rose Street drill hall was completed in around 1908. Inverness and the rest of the central Highlands showed the largest growth of average economic productivity per person in Scotland and the second-greatest growth in the United Kingdom as a whole.

Inverness culture & places

Inverness is an important centre for bagpipe players and lovers, since every September the city hosts the annual Northern Meeting. The city hosted Scotland’s biggest ever Highland Games over two days in July 2006, featuring the Masters’ World Championships, the showcase event for heavies aged over 40 years. The Tartan Heart Festival in the nearby village of Kiltarlity is a summer festival that brings a variety of music to the area.

Scottish Gaelic in Inverness

Historically, Inverness had a solidly Scottish Gaelic speaking population, with the majority of the population having Gaelic as their first language. From approximately the end of the 19th century, following the 1872 Education Act, Inverness suffered a decline in the number of Gaelic speakers in line with the rest of the once Gaidhealtachd / Scottish Highlands. Despite the local dialect of Scottish Gaelic gradually falling out of use (although it continued to affect local English language dialect), the language is still spoken in other dialects and standardised forms. By the end of the 19th century, some rural areas to the south east of Inverness still had completely Gaelic speaking populations, such as Strath Dearn where almost 100% of the population were still Gaelic speaking. 1677: Inverness was described as “overwhelmingly” Gaelic speaking by the traveller Thomas Kirk. 1704: Close to 100% of the population was fluent in Gaelic with over 75% of the population only able to speak Gaelic. Edward Lhuyd published major work on Inverness Gaelic and after collecting data from between 1699 and 1700, his findings showed a distinct dialect in the area. The clear dialect of Inverness Gaelic was held in high regard by speakers of other forms, such as those from Lewis, Sutherland and Ross. Gaelic remained the principal language of Invernessians for the rest of the 18th century, despite growing pressure from outwith the Highlands in both political and social contexts. 1798: Thomas Garnett (Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain) observed that Inverness had become largely bilingual with Invernessians using Gaelic as the language of the home but English as the language of foreign trade – however, the older generation at the time generally only had the Gaelic. Speaking of those in the countryside immediately surrounding Inverness, Garnett stated that although in Inverness both Gaelic and English “are spoken promiscuously…the language of the country people is Gaelic.” 1828: John Wood praised the standard of both the Gaelic and English spoken in Inverness stating that both languages were spoken with “utmost purity.” He noted that children would casually flit between the two languages while playing, asking questions in Gaelic while receiving answers in English and vice versa. 1882: The Celtic Magazine, published in Inverness, complained that enumerators of the 1881 census who assessed whether families were Gaelic speaking, English speaking or both, had supplied false information. The magazine wrote that “whole families …. scarcely any member of whom can express the commonest idea intelligently in English – who are in every sense Gaelic-speaking people only – were returned by the enumerators as English-speaking.” 1901: Inhabitants of Inverness voiced regret at the very swift decay of the native language in the short space of twenty years following a complete absence of bilingual education and disregard for Gaelic. For its size, Inverness today still has a relatively high density of Gaelic speakers and a relatively lively Gaelic scene, making it one of the centres of the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance. According to the 2011 census, 4.8% of residents of greater Inverness over age 3 speak Gaelic compared to 1.1% nationally. At 2,800 Gaelic speakers, only Greater Glasgow and Edinburgh have a higher absolute total. The number of Gaelic speakers has fluctuated over the last century. In 1881, the census reported 4,047 Gaelic speakers in Inverness (23.3% of the population) which by 1891 had risen to 6,356 speakers (30.47%). By 1901 this figure had dropped to 5,072 speakers (23.88%) of the population, from which it continued to drop to present day numbers through emigration and language shift. Scottish Gaelic is slowly re-appearing in the linguistic landscape, appearing on some signs around Inverness. Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis, which opened in August 2007 offering primary school education through the medium of Gaelic, is nearing full capacity and was extended to allow for more pupils in August 2010. Bòrd na Gàidhlig, an organisation responsible for supporting and promoting the use of Scottish Gaelic, has its main office in Inverness. Other Gaelic related groups include the Inverness Gaelic Choir which has existed for over 70 years. Inverness also hosted the Royal National Mòd in 2014, a festival celebrating Gaelic culture. Inverness has a unique accent of Scottish English. While the r’s in most places in Scotland are tapped or rolled, in Inverness they are not. This has contributed to some considering the accent to be more akin to those of Ireland and the English West Country than those of Scotland. However, due to the overall decay of local accents across the United Kingdom, this is less prominent today than it once was.

Cityscape

Inverness Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew, is a cathedral of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The oldest church is the Old High Church, on St Michael’s Mount by the riverside, a site perhaps used for worship since Celtic times. The Catholic population is served by two parish churches, St Mary’s and St Ninian’s. Porterfield Prison is a prison serving the courts of the Highlands, Western Isles, Orkney Isles and Moray.

Long-distance walking hub

Inverness is connected to three long-distance footpaths: The Great Glen Way, The John o’ Groats Trail and The South Loch Ness Trail.

Inverness toponymy

Inverness and its immediate hinterland have a large number of originally Gaelic place names. The area was solidly Gaelic-speaking until the late 19th century. Several springs which were traditionally thought to have healing qualities exist around the city. The Marquis of Montrose was allowed to drink while on his way from his capture in Sutherland to his execution.

Inverness geography / climate

Inverness is situated at the mouth of the River Ness and at the south-western extremity of the Moray Firth. The city lies at the end of the Great Glen with Loch Ness, Loch Ashie and Loch Duntelchaig to the west. The Ness Islands, a publicly owned park, consists of two wooded islands connected by footbridges.

You can visit Inverness places with Walkfo Inverness to hear history at Inverness’s places whilst walking around using the free digital tour app. Walkfo Inverness has 73 places to visit in our interactive Inverness map, with amazing history, culture & travel facts you can explore the same way you would at a museum or art gallery with information audio headset. With Walkfo, you can travel by foot, bike or bus throughout Inverness, being in the moment, without digital distraction or limits to a specific walking route. Our historic audio walks, National Trust interactive audio experiences, digital tour guides for English Heritage locations are available at Inverness places, with a AI tour guide to help you get the best from a visit to Inverness & the surrounding areas.

“Curated content for millions of locations across the UK, with 73 audio facts unique to Inverness places in an interactive Inverness map you can explore.”

Walkfo: Visit Inverness Places Map
73 tourist, history, culture & geography spots

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Inverness historic spots	Inverness tourist destinations	Inverness plaques	Inverness geographic features
Walkfo Inverness tourism map key: places to see & visit like National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top tourist destinations in Inverness

  

Best Inverness places to visit

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Inverness has places to explore by foot, bike or bus. Below are a selection of the varied Inverness’s destinations you can visit with additional content available at the Walkfo Inverness’s information audio spots:

Inshes Inshes is a small residential area in the east of Inverness, Scotland. Some parts of Inshes were built a few decades ago, but most of it was built after 2003. The houses are made by Barrat and Tulloch Homes, which are quite popular in Britain.

Loch Ness F.C. Loch Ness Football Club is a Scottish football club playing in the North Caledonian Football League. Loch Ness is based in the city of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

Visit Inverness plaques