EXACTLY 163 years ago the people of Inverness were terrorised by the raging, rising waters of the Ness, swollen out of all recognition as huge gouges were carved in the town’s upstream defences by the pounding power of incessant, frightening levels of rainwater descending from the mountains, gathering snowfall in its maw and surging down Loch Ness with ever increasing velocity.
This is an anniversary of a truly awesome impact. There has been nothing elemental like it locally before or since as the River Ness, besieged by huge molten walls of water, rose to more than 14 feet, fleeing its banks. Ness Bank, Douglas Row, Huntly Street and King Street were the first to sink beneath the waves and soon one third of the town to the west of the river lay under three to four feet of water, the beknighted citizens feeling as if a flood of Biblical proportions had descended upon them.
The following day, 26th January, at 6.30am, the floodwaters breached the old seven-arched stone bridge, the town’s main crossing which had stood for almost 200 years. Heavy rains had brought Inverness to its knees. Before the stone bridge was swept away many of the flooded-out locals were guided to the safety of the east side of the rogue river. The gate on the bridge then closed, although a brave policeman allowed through some desperate and determined people who crossed the torrent and beseeched entry.
Others were able to flee via the wooden Black Bridge further downstream, which seemed doomed when its north approach became damaged. But the great rail and harbour engineer James Mitchell, former resident of Viewhill House, Inverness, instructed that quarried stone be dumped round the supports of the Black Bridge, enabling it to defy the deluge. It was then closed for a week to allow additional piles to strengthen it once the waters had declined.
The Town Council sat in session round the clock for three days during the deluge, overseeing refuge and sustenance for those whose homes were flooded. Phenomenal efforts by local people had saved those in peril and their basic needs were accounted for. Quite remarkably, after this once in 150 years storm had abated, all those displaced were back in their homes by 2nd February, though the debris of floodwater and the sodden walls led to many a weary sigh. No one had been killed in the storm to end all storms.
All this in a year when the California Gold Rush was on, David Livingstone was trying to find a waterway across Africa, Britain was annexing the Punjab and the Irish Famine was at its height. So what caused this “perfect storm”? Three days of relentless rain and violent winds, the deep lying snow on the hills being turned in to fierce streams, and, unusually for midwinter, a thunderstorm also occurred. Perfect Highland holiday weather.
In recent years, flooding in Drakies and now Smithton highlight the need for adequate defences, but these were minor hiccups compared to the great flood of 1849, one of Scotland’s most significant weather events, which tore a 150 feet wide hole in the Caledonian Canal upstream of Dochgarroch Locks, discharging an unprecedented volume of water into the river.
One of the bridges at Ness Islands collapsed but folk in Inverness were staggered by the loss of the main Ness bridge, along with severe damage to homes along the riverside. The Inverness Courier of the time stated that “a slight groaning was heard, the centre arch gave way and in a minute afterwards the whole seven arches at once disappeared beneath the flood, leaving only a portion of the pier and parapet of the arch next to Bridge Street with the lamp attached.”
Imagine the current bridge disappearing in 60 seconds and you get a sense of the sheer force of the flood which swept down from the loch in to the town.
When built in 1685, the stone bridge had gateways at each end and had originally cost £1300 to build, with some of the stone for its construction coming from the ruins of Cromwell’s Fort.
Clan chief Macleod of Macleod had made the major donation so his coat of arms was on the main stone gate on the east side of the river, along with the coat of arms of the royal burgh. Later, stone from the wrecked bridge would be used to erect the Mercat Cross which still stands beside the Town House at Castle Wynd. It bears the burgh coat of arms and it may well be that this piece is the one retrieved from the Ness.
A toll of one sixth of a penny was levied on everyone passing over the stone bridge when it first opened and in the first half of the 18th century, there was the frequent sight of a woman wading across the Ness carrying people on her back and doing so cheaper than the bridge toll. They bred local women much stronger in those days, no size six dresses or five inch heels then!
Some locals said they could not go to church because they were unable to afford the toll and they played shinty instead. This ruse led the kirk to persuade the council to make Sunday crossings toll-free. Appallingly, in a 12 feet cell between two of the arches, accessed by a trapdoor on the bridge surface, prisoners and mentally ill people were confined.
When the bridge vanished into the wild waters, and the flood levels eventually abated, boats were used to transport people across the river at a charge of a halfpenny until a temporary wooden bridge, for pedestrians only, was built.
Meanwhile, the inquest was on. James Mitchell blamed the flood and damage on extensive repairs carried out several years earlier by civil engineer James Walker when £150,000 was spent, particularly at the outlet of the Ness and the loch, to make the water more navigable for larger craft.To deepen the channel through Loch Dochgarroch and secure a fixed depth of 17 feet of water, Walker raised the outlet weir, over which the river flows, four and a half feet high. He constructed a waste weir which he reckoned would siphon into the river excess water from winter floods. Mitchell argued this waste weir was wholly inadequate and winter water surging over the weir “is swollen to a great height and runs through its short course to the sea in rapid and majestic volume.”
The council blamed these works for the financial loss from the flood and after asking Mitchell to head an investigation, they then referred their case to the government. It despatched noted military engineer Sir John Burgoyne, who recommended a settlement. But Burgoyne’s estimate of £8000 as the cost of a new bridge dismayed the local authority. The provost, town clerk and Mitchell were sent to London to make the case for £13,000 for a new stone bridge but the chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Charles Wood offered only £4000, a sum that would make George Osborne seem like a reckless spendthrift.
The chancellor then sent another engineer named Rendal north and, despite the council’s insistence that they wanted a stone bridge and not a new-style suspension bridge, he recommended the latter at a cost of £15,000. The council argued, but the chancellor responded that it was Rendal’s design or none at all, so Inverness accepted it.
The contract ruined the contractor, who succumbed after losing £5000 on the job, as the suspension bridge took five years to build and eventually cost the government £30,000. When it did open in 1855, the battlemented arched pylon at the Bridge Street side was an attractive feature, but the advances of modern traffic meant that this gateway became totally unsuitable and by the 1930s there were calls for its demolition.
A temporary bridge was put in place in 1939 and the now unused suspension bridge had enjoyed less than half the working life of its old stone predecessor. It was finally demolished in 1959 to allow work to begin on Sir Murdoch Macdonald’s design for the existing concrete Ness bridge.
Over the years we have seen several flood warnings, and sandbags down Douglas Row and the riverside, but there has been nothing remotely close to the great storm of 1849. Long may its record hold.
This is an anniversary of Inverness’s soggiest day.
Cafe recollections
IN my recollections of Eastgate I mentioned frequenting a small cafe whose name escaped me. I had a phone call from Jane Fraser, Old Mill Lane, who tells me it was the Eastgate Snack Bar and as a schoolgirl in the late 1950s she had a Saturday job there washing the dishes. “It was run by Miss Macdonnell and her sister and the cafe had a busy trade, particularly from the farmers,” she says.
Thanks, Jane. I can see Miss Macdonnell in my mind’s eye, serving tea stronger than a docker’s language, the kind of caffeine jolt that stops you sleeping for a week. No lattes or cappuccinos in those days!
