BILL McALLISTER: Culcabock the Inverness area that retains its village charm with a fascinating historic background
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CULCABOCK was once a separate wee village on the outskirts of Inverness, swallowed up eventually by expanding burgh boundaries, but it still retains its own village-like aspect and appeal.
The area was known in medieval times as ’Machrie’, from the Gaelic word ‘machair’ meaning plain – and owes its eventual development to a blend of cheese and horses…
‘Clach Donnaichaidh’, an old local Gaelic place name, later known as King Duncan’s Grave, is a misnomer for the monarch, killed in battle near Elgin in 1040, is actually buried on Iona.
King Duncan’s Well is marked by a stone beside the track into Raigmore Woods at Culcabock crossroads – but one theory is that the well is actually connected to the Robertsons of Inshes, the landed family who acquired the estate of Culcabock from the burgh. The Robertsons, who have their own mausoleum in the Old High Church cemetery, were a branch of ‘Clach Donnaichaidh’ from Argyll.
A chap called William Pilche is referred to as Laird of Culcabock in a document dated 1508, so the name was prevalent then.
It stemmed from Cuil na Cabaig, the Gaelic for Nook of the Cheese, the produce of local crofts. Scotland’s oldest cheese is Caboc, a double cream affair created in the 15th century Highlands and this may have also been woven into the village’s name.
Old accounts of Inverness fairs mention ‘kebbocks of cheese’ for sale, so that, too, seems melded into the ‘cabock’ part of the title.
The Burn of the Bents, or Allt Muirneach, is now mainly underground and ran through a wooded valley between Raigmore and today’s Cameron Barracks. The old ford over this burn was where Culcabock crossroads now stands and its frequent habit of overflowing, flooding the road, to the displeasure of carters and drovers, led to it being named Fluke Street – ‘fluich’ being the Gaelic for wet.
The name lives on in the Fluke Inn – although 20 years or so ago its title was the New Market Inn, though everyone referred to it as “the Fluke”. The New Market label stemmed from the fact that the Fluke Street Horse Market was a crowd-puller there from the 1850s to the early 1900s. It was later called the Old Culcabock Market, with Clydesdales and other working horses paraded for sale. It was a key location on the drove route along which vast herds of cattle plodded to the southern markets – hence the name Old Perth Road.
Drovers seeking to buy or sell horses for these treks would often stop off in Fluke Street for a drink or a deal – or both!
Just off the crossroads is Culcabock Avenue, and Drakies House, a two-storey house dated 1820, built from plans drawn up by Invernessian Robert Gordon, who, however, died on a visit to his West Indies plantation in 1809. The two-storey harled mansion has Roman Doric columns in its entrance portico.
The Mackintoshes of Raigmore owned the land just up from the crossroads where the hospital grounds begin. They built Raigmore House before 1832 but the Georgian mansion was demolished in 1965 as the hospital was developed.
An area used as a Market Stance until 120 years ago, between Drakies House and the Mill Burn, is now part of Culcabock golf course, home of the Inverness club since moving from the Longman in the 1880s.
Behind the course, on Old Mill Lane, is Culcabock House, an 18th century mansion built on the site of the home of the Grants, who were Barons of Culcabock from the 16th century and in whose cellars Jacobite soldiers were given refuge after Culloden. The last Robertson of Inshes lived in Culcabock House in the late 19th century.
The crossroads – where the compact Crossroads Garage has traded for decades – led on to a Toll House, built in 1840 at what became the original entrance to Raigmore Hospital. Collection of tolls from travellers ended in 1878 but the Toll House was not pulled down until 1966.
An ancient moot hill, or seat of justice, stood in what is now the hospital grounds, 1000 years ago; a reminder of the antiquity of the village area that takes its name from cheese.
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