NION Street remains a particularly attractive, spacious and well designed city centre street, the kind of Victorian era avenue you would be pleased to show to a visitor. But the commercial heart of this splendid thoroughfare beats less so fiercely just now, with gaps where there used to be retail outlets.
A wander down there the other evening showed that, while Union Street still sustains significant employment, it has spaces where thriving businesses used to be. Junners Toyshop — once the site of Melvens splendid bookshop — closed last year and has not been replaced. Beside it lies Oddbins, empty with only a notice in the window suggesting customers use its website. I doubt if that would come up with two bottles of Chianti and a 12-year-old Highland Park at two hours notice.
There are smaller unused outlets across the road and a larger empty one next to Beggs handbag and shoe shop. There are few things as sad as an empty shop, dusty, unwanted and echoing of past footsteps.
The retail anchor of Union Street for many decades was its large department store with its stylish frontage. Benzies store was in its day unique in the Highlands and many a child was taken there at Christmas to meet Santa Claus. It was succeeded by House of Fraser and Arnotts, whose upmarket fare was beloved by many. But in 2003 Arnotts closed with the loss of 143 jobs, and Union Street looks as if it is still in mourning. A large chunk of the department store frontage is now taken up for charity in the shape of the British Heart Foundation’s furniture and electrical shop. Slaters menswear has been a good addition upstairs, but when Arnotts closed its doors, the Queen of Inverness shopping streets lost her crown.
The shopping footfall now predominantly moves between the Eastgate Centre, whose arrival weakened Arnotts, and the High Street, working against Union Street.
It now has two banks and two pubs, the smokers huddled outside the latter chattering through the wisps of blue smoke as I passed. There are two or three classy shops, restaurants and a guest house. Quite a few offices remain, but many fewer than before IT demanded datacabling and resulted in offices relocating to the edge of town.
Similar streets in other towns and cities also have retail gaps because of the recession and it is to be hoped that Union Street can regain its joie de vivre. It requires a major new addition to inject fresh impetus in to the shopping pattern of a graceful street.
I’m a less than enthusiastic shopper. I keep something tucked away for a rainy day — my wellies. Unlike my wife who buys anything that’s marked down. Last week she came home with an escalator.
What about the guy from Dalneigh who asked the shop assistant in Arnotts for a bar of soap? She asks: "Would you like it scented?" He replies: "No thanks, I’ll take it with me".
Or the guy who finds in a cupboard a shoe repair ticket that’s 11 years old. His wife says: "They’ll never be still there, but pop in and see". He goes in, the assistant takes the ticket and goes through the back and he hears: "Isn’t that amazing? They’re still here". The assistant then returns to the counter and tells him: "They’ll be ready Thursday".
The Music Hall was regarded as the focal point of what was a showpiece street when Union Street opened in 1865. The hall seated 1300 people and became a major entertainment asset. It was badly damaged by fire in 1898 and took £10,000 to restore. The Methodist Church took over the premises in the 1920s and occupied it until another blaze, 50 years ago this December, destroyed it, leading to the Methodist community relocating across the water to their present riverside location.
The Douglas Hotel, opened between the wars, was an excellent function venue and meeting place in Union Street from the 1960s to the 1980s and many will remember it thriving under Hugh Grant’s managership.
So how did Union Street come to be?
Charles Fraser Mackintosh was an Inverness councillor who went on to become the only Gaelic-speaking MP, urging the use of the language in schools and being the dynamo behind the setting up of the Crofters Commission.
Born Charles Fraser in 1828, son of Alexander Fraser, a tacksman of the Dochgarroch area, he added his mother’s maiden name by royal licence before he was 30.
He became a solicitor and joined Inverness burgh council. He took an interest in land acquisition and was soon a local developer. Indeed, he became chairman of the Anglo American Land Mortgage and Agency company.
Our Charlie was one of a gang of four who had the vision, funds and determination to create what was to be the widest street in the burgh, accommodating modern shops and offices. When you look at the height, scale, style and quality of the buildings, they clearly had the aim of taking the city centre to a new level of distinction.
He was one of three solicitors in the plan, the others being Hugh Rose and Donald Davidson, and they were joined by architect George Mackay in securing planning consent and beginning work in 1863.
There were gardens with small dilapidated streets at either end and the group identified this land as ideal for their purposes and secured it for £6000. When they had completed Union Street, the quartet’s profit was enormous. But they had made a vital contribution to the growth of Inverness.
Mackintosh and George Mackay snapped up Drummond Estate in 1863 and a couple of years later it was Mackintosh alone who bought the Ballifeary Estate, skilfully developing these large tranches of land to provide scores of houses for what he had rightly anticipated as the rapid growth of demand from the emerging middle class. Clearly a man who could sell underarm deodorant to Venus de Milo.
Charlie boy was affluent enough to build himself a stately shack which is now the Lochardil Hotel.
Now extremely well-padded financially, he stood for Parliament in 1874 as a Liberal. He only polled 1134 votes, but as in those days you had to be a property owner — and not a woman — to vote, this meant he took a whopping 55.9 per cent. The total poll was 2029, an 84 per cent turnout!
Mackintosh held the seat for nine years then switched to the Crofters Party and stayed an MP until 1892 when, in another body swerve, he joined the Liberal Unionist Party and thus lost the support of the Highland Land League, so he was defeated.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the establishment of the first Inverness Free Library on a cleared site in Castle Wynd in 1883 and donated papers to it. Charles was a prolific writer and columnist on the history of Inverness, the Clan Chattan and the Gaelic language.
His personal library of more than 5000 books and journals were in 1921 donated to Inverness Burgh Library by his widow.
Charles Fraser Mackintosh thus takes his rightful place as a highly significant figure in the development of Inverness. It is ironic that, speaking to the Field Club in 1893, he complained that the town’s growth and prosperity "had the effect of removing many landmarks dear to the sons of Clachnacuddin."
After more than 150 years, his Union Street is still pleasing on the eye. On a sunny afternoon its tall buildings shine like the seat of my blue suit.
It — the street, not the suit — deserves a long life and increased usage.
