BILL MCALLISTER: Once-gilded venue enjoyed 172 (mostly) glamorous years including visits by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, and Princess Margaret – this year marks the 60th anniversary of the closure of the Northern Meeting Rooms in Inverness
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Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, danced there as, in the 1950s, did Princess Margaret – but this year is the 60th anniversary of the closure of the Northern Meeting Rooms, this celebrated Inverness building then crumbling into dust and memory.
In its closing years, the venue opened for public dances, so there will still be some around with memories of tripping the light fantastic there.
But in its heyday, the Meeting Rooms were very much the domain of the landed gentry and folk with titles, its annual ball being the Highlands’ social magnet.
This iconic building was situated in Church Street at the junction with Baron Taylor’s Street. The frontage was on classical lines and in Church Street it originally had a columned portico projecting over the pavement. Inside were spacious rooms, including a splendid dance hall once frequented by the titled and the wealthy.
In 1788, 13 Highland gentlemen gathered in Inverness to set up what was in effect an upper-class social club. The 79 original members included all significant landowners from Caithness to Moray, the provost and magistrates of Inverness, and the burgh’s professional strata of lawyers, doctors, bankers and merchants.
Jane, Duchess of Gordon, was a driving force behind what was named the Northern Meeting, with the focus on a week of social and sporting activity in Inverness. This vision was also seen as healing post-Culloden divisions.
Bonnie Prince Charlie had died months earlier and the ban on the kilt, imposed following Culloden, had been lifted, paving the way for a revival in tartan and Highland music. Piping competitions in Edinburgh were transferred to Inverness once the Northern Meeting was up and running.
The principals sought donations for their own premises and the Northern Meeting Rooms were built in 1790 on a site purchased from Inverness Town Council.
The rooms were severely damaged by a fire in Baron Taylor’s Street in 1805 but were successfully restored.
Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus was 17 when she attended the Northern Meeting Ball in 1814. She recalled: “Probably all young girls have felt at least once in their lives as I felt on mounting the broad, handsome staircase of the Northern Meeting Rooms on my father’s arm… all was noise and blaze and mob.”
An invitation to the ball in the Meeting Rooms was a prized social distinction, and townsfolk would gather to watch the gentry arrive.
In 1821, seven chandeliers were installed at £700 in the prestigious rooms, while 12 years later ground-floor alterations allowed theatre shows.
In this month in 1865, the Duke of Richmond was the Northern Meeting patron with Lord Lovat as head steward.
The long list of stewards included the Earl of Seafield, Cameron of Lochiel, General Sir Patrick Grant, Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Gairloch, Colonel Fraser-Tytler of Aldourie, the Provost of Inverness and no fewer than four MPs – Henry Baillie of Redcastle, Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks of Guisachan, James Merry of Belladrum and Major Cumming-Bruce of Roseisle.
Down the decades the Meeting Rooms continued to be the focal point of Highland society. But times were changing. In World War I, it housed the American YMCA, while various military units used it in World War II.
The Northern Meeting, which still operates, increasingly found the building a financial burden in the post-war era with limited use and high maintenance costs.
In 1962, they locked the doors of the once-gilded venue and agreed to sell the site for development.
When it was demolished, the chandeliers were gifted to the local council with four of them still in the Town House.
The wrought iron balcony and its solid oak balustrade were auctioned off.
The Meeting Rooms, where many a society marriage was triggered and which saw more fur coats than an African safari, exist now only in memory’s mist. But, for the most part, it enjoyed 172 glamorous years.
• Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
