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Publication Account
Date 1977
Event ID 1018425
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018425
Oliver Cromwell undertook construction of a citadel at Inverness in an effort to overawe the Highlands. Begun in 1652, it took five years to finish. When completed, the citadel was a five-cornered structure with bastions and a wet ditch on four sides, the fifth being washed by the river. Inside the compound was a quartet of buildings providing accommodation for 1, 000 troops, a church, magazine and stores. The principal gateway of the citadel faced north with a sally port on the opposite side facing the burgh. Stone for the project came from nearby ecclesiastical centres: Beauly, Kinloss, St. Mary's Chapel and the Dominican Friary. The area is largely mutilated with only portions of the northeast and northwest bastions and part of the north rampart surviving. A rather curious clock-tower stands in what was the citadel compound. It is an almost square tower of ashlar masonry, surmounted by a slated belfry and with a weathervane, dating perhaps from the eighteenth century (Ordnance Survey, Record Cards, Reference NH 64 NE 4).
Information from ‘Historic Inverness: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1977).
