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Down Memory Lane: A building at the heart of city life for almost two centuries


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Inverness Library actually began life as a city school surrounded by open space. Picture: Gary Anthony.
Inverness Library actually began life as a city school surrounded by open space. Picture: Gary Anthony.

THIS year marks the 180th anniversary of the opening of Farraline Park, arguably Inverness’s finest building, which owes its existence to the generosity of a Fife wigmaker’s son, writes Bill McAllister.

As the home of the library it is now a quiet place despite a busy bus station having replaced what 75 years ago was an open square.

Farraline Park is the inspiration of Dr Andrew Bell, from St Andrews, whose interest in education was sparked when he was an army chaplain in India.

Faced with a lack of proper teachers, Dr Bell devised what became known as “the Madras method” of education in which older boys passed on what they had been taught to younger ones. This proved to be highly successful, in no small part due to Bell’s enthusiastic rollout of his system in India and eventually the UK.

When he died – after being a leading official at Westminster Cathedral – he bequeathed a trust to carry on his method and Inverness Burgh Council gained a £10,000 donation to erect a school to operate “the Madras method”.

The great local architect Sir Alexander Ross, known as “the Christopher Wren of the North” was Provost of Inverness half a century after Bell’s legacy came to fruition and an early pupil at Dr Bell’s School.

There was a grisly incident when workmen excavating the site uncovered nine full skeletons with the theory they were the bodies of people who had manned the town’s nearby old defensive palisade.

Elgin architect William Robertson – also responsible for St Mary’s Catholic Church, Huntly Street, and St John’s Episcopal Church in Abban Street – was commissioned to build the school and did so in a pleasing Greek revival style, while the town’s clerk of works Henry Burrell designed and constructed the handsome Doric portico with its four columns and wreath-adorned pediment

A contemporary report stated: “…the school bids fair to be a great acquisition to the educational interests of the town. The magnificent stretch of ground at the back and front of the building cannot fail to be amply appreciated as a recreation ground by scholars.”

This underlines that the area was already known at the time as Farraline Park, having previously been owned by the Frasers of Farraline, who owned Farraline House and estate at Errogie.

The square in front of Dr Bell’s School was called Bell’s Park and was initially covered in grass. The Inverness Ragged School, one of a series rolled out in Scotland to offer free education to destitute children, was originally sited in Tanner’s Lane, off Tomnahurich Street, in 1853, but when it burned down four years later its new version was located in Rose Street, behind Dr Bell’s School. It closed in 1885 but not demolished until the 1950s.

Dr Bell’s institution was still busy when the 1900s arrived and up to the First World War, but pupil numbers began to shrink as other schools opened. Farraline Park School closed in 1937.

It was afterwards used as the Burgh Courthouse, then as a police sub-station as well as the Justice of the Peace Courts for minor offences.

Finally, 41 years ago, after the public library, built in Castle Wynd in 1838 by Alexander Ross, was demolished as part of the cultural vandalism of Bridge Street at the time, councillors wisely chose Farraline Park as the ideal new location.

This is the 40th anniversary of it gaining category A conservation status and next month the library reopens for its book-starved clientele.

- Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.

Related news: Down Memory Lane: Fire has been a common theme in the theatrical history of Inverness


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