BILL McALLISTER: Castle Street set for bright future as Inverness Castle becomes even bigger attraction
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IT WAS a partly natural, partly artificial ravine below the castle, and what is now Castle Street was once called Overgait Port, a gateway in the burgh’s timber defensive palisade, where people from the south as well as Ness Side, Strathdearn and Strathnairn, could enter or leave the burgh’s trading heart.
Overgait means ‘Upper Way’ and the actual gateway was approximately where the Baptist Church now stands. By the 15th century, the street was renamed Damysdale, or Dymisdale, according to old documents, eventually becoming Doomsdale, as it was the route taken by those condemned creatures heading for the public gallows beside today’s Ardkeen Tower, at the junction with Culduthel Road.
This year is the 175th anniversary of three Highland chieftains and supporters making their final trek up Doomsdale for creating unrest against King James I, who used a parliament in Inverness in spring 1427 to seize those who had been slow to pledge allegiance. He was more generous to other offenders, exiling them to the Bass Rock!
Demolition works at 13-21 Castle Street allowed excavations in 1979 which saw archaeologists uncover the cobbles of what had been Doomsdale, a much wider thoroughfare than its successor. They also uncovered foundations of four wood and wattle-and-clay buildings dating from the early 13th to mid-15th century, when evidence shows destruction by fire and later rebuilding on the same site. One property had been used for metal work, possibly lead, while pottery fragments showed an Inverness creative tradition.
Experts also discovered a Mesolithic flint ‘industry’, of 137 worked pieces and 4700 other flint fragments, which indicated a settlement in ‘our’ Castle Street as early as 5000 BC – underlining its antiquity amidst what is now a city centre.
Doomsdale’s grim title was abandoned by 1675, when Castle Street became its official moniker. The street became heavily settled and a whole series of closes sprung up off it.
Aboyne Court, a link to the Gordons of Huntly, ran between Castle Street and Castle Wynd in 1837, later being renamed Craggie’s Close after John Fraser of Craggie. Other closes, which existed up to 120 years ago, bore the names Watson, Macallan, Scott and Robertson.
The Robertsons of Inshes, a prominent local family with its own mausoleum in the Old High Church graveyard, owned buildings in the street from 1448 to the 1700s. A marriage lintel at 5 Castle Street was dated 1644 with the initials of merchant and burgess Alexander Barbour and his bride Jean Cuthbert.
One old close, next to kiltmaker Chisholms’ premises, will open later this year to public sight thanks to a public-private development of flats and a shop on the site of a bridal shop which was one of the burgh’s oldest buildings. A glimpse into the past shows old close buildings and steps, while stonework from the original frontage is being used in the new façade.
Still going strong and celebrating its 155th anniversary is Grahams of Inverness, the sportsman’s store which opened in 1857.
There used to be buildings on both sides of the street but on October 8, 1932, a landslide on Castle Hill swept away the retaining wall, demolished the Mission Hall on Castle Street and tore gable ends off other houses.
The council, who had evacuated residents, ultimately rehoused them, pulled down their damaged homes and installed the sloping grass bank which today stands on that flank of the street.
Hetty’s newsagent shop used to be opposite the Castle Tavern but has been gone now for 30 years. Barneys, the papers and grocery shop, has been trading for over 70 years while the Castle Restaurant is of similar vintage.
Sitting between Castle Hill and Barn Hill – the Ardconnel Street and Crown area – Castle Street has developed to the point where it is now a busy, attractive place, with a choice of bars and restaurants, along with an art gallery.
The multi-million pound castle visitor redevelopment will be a major fillip to the old street’s visitor footprint.
Where once rebels and murderers took their last steps, the street in the shadow of the castle is now taking its own place in the sun.
n Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
