General view of Fort William, including pier, from south

Description General view of Fort William, including pier, from south

Date 1883

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 746273

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 898

Scope and Content Fort William, Highland, from the south Fort William, a town at the south-west end of the Great Glen, lies on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe, on a thin edge of land between steep hills and the loch. The 19th century brought moderate prosperity to the town before it developed in the late Victorian era with the arrival of the railway. Erskine Beveridge photographed Fort William in 1883. Many of the Victorian buildings show the influence of the Gothic and Baronial styles popular in the 1860s and 1870s (right). The smaller, two-storeyed whitewashed houses, clustered round the pier (centre), are mainly Georgian in style, and probably date from the early 19th century. The stone-built pier (left), dating from the 19th century, was the town's main point of arrival and departure before the railway link to the south opened in 1894. The right to found a burgh here was granted in 1618 to the Marquess of Huntly, who called it Gordonburgh after his family name. In 1654 a Cromwellian fort was built, and when this was reconstructed as Fort William in 1690 in honour of King William III, the adjoining settlement was renamed Maryburgh after his wife. The burgh was largely destroyed during the Jacobite rising of 1745-6, and despite subsequent rebuilding, was described in 1760 as 'a very poor town'. In 1834 the superiority over the burgh was acquired by Sir Duncan Cameron, who tried unsuccessfully to get it known as Duncansburgh, a name which has stuck only to the parish church. The town was known as Fort William in 1874. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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