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Inverness, 43, 45 Clachnaharry Road, Clachnaharry Canal Offices And Telford Commemorative Plaque

Office(S) (Period Unassigned), Plaque (Early 19th Century) (1822), Post Office (19th Century) - (20th Century)

Site Name Inverness, 43, 45 Clachnaharry Road, Clachnaharry Canal Offices And Telford Commemorative Plaque

Classification Office(S) (Period Unassigned), Plaque (Early 19th Century) (1822), Post Office (19th Century) - (20th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Caledonian Canal, Muirtown Basin, Canaloffices; Managers House

Canmore ID 101394

Site Number NH64NW 86

NGR NH 64943 46439

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/101394

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Inverness And Bona
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Inverness
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes

NH64NW 86 64943 46439

Offices [NAT]

OS 1:2500 map, 1975.

Previously entered as 5 Clachnaharry Road, at cited location NH 6494 4644.

Grid Ref: NH 65 46 ( approximate location of Clachnaharry Rd; buildings exact position still unlocated)

Source: O/S 1:10,000 Map, 1992.

One wall of the canal offices bears a plaque of verse by Robert Southey in praise of Telford:

'Where these capacious basins, by the laws

Of the subjacent element, receive

The Ship, descending or upraised, eight times,

From stage to stage with unfelt agency

Translated, fitliest may the marble here

Record the Architect's immortal name.

TELFORD it was by whose presiding mind

The whole great work was planned and perfected;

TELFORD who o'er the vale of Cambrian Dee

Aloft in air at giddy height upborne

Carried his Navigable road: and hung

High o'er Menai's Strait the bending bridge:

Structures of more ambitious enterprise

Than Minstrels in the age of old Romance

To their own Merlin's magic lore ascribed.

Nor hath he for his native land performed

Less in the proud design; and where his piers

Around her coast from many a Fisher's creek

Unsheltered else, and many an ample Port

Repel the assailing storm: and where his Roads

In beautiful and sinuous line far seen

Wind with the vale and win the long ascent

Now o'er the deep morass sustained, and now

Across ravine, or glen or estuary

Gaining a passage through the wilds subdued.'

H McKnight 1975; L T C Rolt 1979.

Activities

Field Visit (8 May 2013 - 8 May 2013)

Clachnaharry, 43-45 Clachnaharry Road, Canal Offices and Plaque – NH64NW 86.00

GR NH 64943 46439

Number 43 Clachnaharry Road (there is currently no Number 45) is a two storey building with a slate roof and a small porch which appears to be of late Victorian period. It was originally two houses – number 43 being the canal offices and number 45 the managers house. Various small extensions have been made on the south and the west sides of the building. A plaque, described below, is set into one of the extensions on the SE corner. The building is now used as offices and little of the original internal fittings survive. The only feature of interest is a heavy metal strong room door in a metal frame leading to a small room, a “security or safe room”, part of the small extension at the SE corner (the one with the plaque on the outside) (Information supplied by occupiers)

Plaque – Built into the outside of the SE extension there is a white marble slab measuring 2m x 1.2m in a concrete setting which measures 2.5m x 1.5m overall. A verse (already recorded) is inscribed on the marble slab and at the foot is the information “erected at the Centenary” (of the opening of the canal in 1822)

Visited by the Scottish Canals Recording Project (DF) 8 MAy 2013

Note (19 June 2014)

The plaque was cut in 1822 but not erected until 1922. It is understood that three plaques were not erected following an instruction by Telford because they neglected to mention the work of his consulting engineer, William Jessop and the other engineers. This plaque, intended to be sited at Banavie, was rediscovered in the early 20th century and erected in 1922 to mark the centenary of the opening of the canal.

Information from HES Listed Building description (LB52229) 2014

References

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