Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 564792
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/564792
I In 1763, Sir James Macdonald of Sleat (1741 -66) -the 'Marcellus of Skye' -wrote of his ambitions to create 'a complete city at this place.. I am so full of the scheme that I fancy I see the street and the shops and warehouses on every side'. But he died tragically young, and his vision for the economic development and agricultural reorganisation of Skye remained largely unfulfilled. Above the harbour, where the last surviving 19th century commercial ice house (later raised a storey as a warehouse) can still be seen built into a bank on Quay Brae, the later 19th century village spread out round the new focus of Somerled Square. This unpretentious civic space is now a carpark, with a war memorial of 1922 , overlooking which Matthews and Lawrie have left their stamp in a medley of styles: Courthouse, 1865, a simple pedimented classical villa with parapet urns; Clydesdale Bank, 1866, 'Georgian-survival' with heavily pedimented ground floor windows; and the Bank of Scotland, 1873, gabled and hoodmoulded gothic. The Portree Hotel has a three-storey corner block by Alexander Ross, 1875. Parish Church (originally Free Church), John Hay of Liverpool, 1850-4, hardly grander or larger than its predecessor (now a furnishings warehouse in Bank Street, dating from 1820), but prettier, with latticed gothic lights and cottagey porch. A painted, balustraded parapet gives the solid whinstone frontage of R. J. Macbeth's classical Masonic Hall, 1912 , a quirky charm. Of the other churches on this axis, the Free Presbyterian Church by John Mackenzie, 1895, has gothic hoodmoulds and octagonal flèche; Church of St. Columba, (Episcopal), Alexander Ross,1884, is a rectangular hall with gothic lancets, its saddleback tower removed in 1953. Inside, a window by E. Ingram dedicated to Flora Macdonald, 1896, depicts Esther delivering her countrymen. Linked Rectory, 1891.
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
