Banksy on the banks of River Ness? Well, perhaps not...

Ripples of excitement spread through Inverness when a Banksy-style image was spotted beside the River Ness.

This sparked much speculation online that the mysterious English street artist Banksy had visited the Highland Capital to create some of his graffiti magic under the Friars Bridge.

There were many comments on the What's Happening Inverness Facebook pages praising the work and admiring how artistic it was.

But the sharp eyed spotted that the image had not been sprayed or painted onto the bridge's concrete structure, but had been done on material that had been attached like a sticker.

And the Courier can reveal that the image is from a well known Old Inverness black and white photograph showing youngsters hanging around a salmon coble that decades ago used to fish at the Friar's Shot just upstream of the bridge in front of the Waterfront bar and restaurant.

Several local establishments, including the V8 Cafe on Henderson Road in the Longman, have a copy of the lovely old photo hanging on their walls.

Some people believed it was a paint job with one woman saying: "Lovely to see some genuine art and thank you to the artist more like this would be wonderful."

Another said: "Now that’s art and it didn’t cost the local people a penny . Love it."

And with a dig at the riverside art Gathering Place at Ness Islands, another posted: "Inverness needs to allow more graffiti artists to paint under bridges. I know a lot of inappropriate stuff got sprayed on the underpass at the top of Innes Street but Inverness could do with more murals and random artworks (that aren't million pound brick walkways)."

One or two realised it hadn't been painted on. Nadia Geddes said: "Its a sticker, it would be lovely if it was actually a real painting."

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