Weather in Inverness
Getting to Inverness the capital of the Highlands is easy. Flights arrive daily to Inverness Airport. A frequent daily train Service from England and Scotland make getting around a pleasure giving you a taste of the scenery to come. For a cost effective way of getting to Inverness the Megabus is the answer with cheap fares all year round. Once you get here there is a multitude of things to see and do, you can cruise Loch Ness, book a World Class tour with Inverness Tours and see things that will stay in your memory for the rest of your life. For all that's happening in and around the area this coming year Inverness Events.
A must see is the Loch Ness Centre & Exhibition Experience
Cruise Loch Ness with the Jacobite Experience
Cycle the Highlands with Ticket to Ride bike hire
Be one with nature with a Forest walk in the Highlands
Go to Orkney and back in a day
For information on Golf and Fishing in Inverness and surrounding area
Swim and Gym keep fit in Inverness
For the more adventurous we recommend Boots n Paddles and Highland Activities
The Cairngorm Mountains are only 35 miles from Inverness
Take a walk along the towpath of the Caledonian Canal which connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William.
It runs some 62 miles (100 kilometres) from northeast to southwest. Only one third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy. These lochs are part of the Great Glen, a geological fault in the Earth's crust. There are 29 locks (including eight at Neptune's Staircase, Banavie), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal.
The canal was designed by engineer Thomas Telford, supported by William Jessop, and was built between 1803 and 1822 at a cost of £840,000. The canal was never a great commercial success because, as originally built, it was too shallow and suffered from poor construction in places. Most traffic still used the sea route. It was not deepened until 1847 by which time most ships were too large. The canal is now mainly used by pleasure craft. It is maintained and operated by British Waterways, a governmental organisation.
| Inverness Castle sits on a cliff overlooking the River Ness, in Inverness, Scotland. The red sand stone structure evident today was built in 1836 by architect William Burn. It is built on the site of an 11th century defensive structure. Today, it houses Inverness Sheriff Court. There has been a castle at this site for many centuries. |
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| Urquhart Castle sits beside Loch Ness in Scotland along the A82 road, between Fort William and Inverness. It is close to the village of Drumnadrochit. Though extensively ruined, it was in its day one of the largest strongholds of medieval Scotland, and remains an impressive structure, splendidly situated on a headland overlooking Loch Ness. It is also near the castle where the majority of Nessie (Loch Ness Monster) sightings occur. |
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| Cawdor Castle is a tower house set amid magnificent gardens in the parish of Cawdor, approximately 10 miles (16 km) east of Inverness and 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Nairn in Scotland, United Kingdom. It belonged to the Clan Calder. It still serves as home to the Dowager Countess Cawdor, stepmother of Colin Robert Vaughan Campbell, 7th (and present) Earl Cawdor and 25th Thane of Cawdor. The castle is perhaps best known for its literary connection to William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, the title character of which was made Thane of Cawdor. However, the story is highly fictionalised, and the castle itself was built many years after the events of the play. |
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Eilean Donan (Scottish Gaelic for Island of Donan), is a small island in Loch Duich in the western Highlands of Scotland. It is connected to the mainland by a footbridge and lies about half a mile from the village of Dornie. Eilean Donan is named after St Donan, a Celtic saint martyred in the Dark Ages.
The original castle was built in 1220 for Alexander II as a defence against the Vikings. By the late 13th century it had become a stronghold of the Mackenzies of Kintail (later the Earls of Seaforth). In 1511, the MacRaes, as protectors of the MacKenzies, became the hereditary Constables of the Castle.
In 1539 Iain Dubh Matheson, chief of the Clan Matheson died whilst defending the Castle on Eilean Donan island against the Clan MacDonald of Sleat on behalf of the Clan MacRae and Clan MacKenzie.
In April 1719 the castle was occupied by Spanish troops attempting to start another Jacobite Rising. The castle was recaptured, and then demolished, by three Royal Navy frigates on 10–13 May 1719. The Spanish troops were defeated a month later at the Battle of Glen Shiel.
The castle was restored in the years between 1919 and 1932 by Lt. Col. John MacRae-Gilstrap. The restoration included the construction of an arched bridge to give easier access to the castle. In 1983 The Conchra Charitable Trust was formed by the MacRae family to care for the Castle. A curious distinction is that it has one of only two left-handed spiral staircases in a castle in Great Britain, as the reigning king at the time of building held a sword with his left hand. |
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| Dunrobin Castle is a stately home in Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland, United Kingdom, and the seat of the Countess of Sutherland and Clan Sutherland. It is close to the A9 road, and to a Far North Line railway station, which is named for the castle. |
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| The Clava cairn is a type of Bronze Age circular chamber tomb cairn, named after the group of 3 cairns at Balnuaran of Clava, to the east of Inverness in Scotland. There are about 50 cairns of this type in an area round about Inverness. They fall into two sub-types, one typically consisting of a corbelled passage grave with a single burial chamber linked to the entrance by a short passage and covered with a cairn of stones, with the entrances oriented south west towards midwinter sunset. In the other sub-type an annular ring cairn encloses an apparently unroofed area with no formal means of access from the outside. In both sub-types a stone circle surrounds the whole tomb and a kerb often runs around the cairn. The heights of the standing stones vary in height so that the tallest fringe the entrance (oriented south west) and the shortest are directly opposite it. |
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The Battle of Culloden (16 April 1746) was the final clash between the French-supported Jacobites and the Hanoverian British Government in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Culloden dealt the Jacobite cause—to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain—a decisive defeat.
The Jacobites, largely Highland Scots, supported the claim of James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") to the throne. The government army, under the Duke of Cumberland, younger son of the Hanoverian sovereign, King George II, supported his father's cause. It too included Highland Scots, as well as Scottish Lowlanders and English troops.
The aftermath of the battle was brutal and earned the victorious general the nickname "Butcher" Cumberland. Charles Edward Stuart eventually left Britain and went to Rome, never to attempt to take the throne again. Civil penalties were severe with new laws that attacked the Highlanders' clan system. Highland dress was now to be restricted to use by the British Army. |
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| Fort George, Ardersier, Highland, Scotland, is a large 18th century fortress near Inverness with perhaps the mightiest artillery fortifications in Europe. It was built to pacify the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745, replacing an earlier Fort George built with the same aim after the 1715 Jacobite rising. The fortress has never been attacked, and has remained in continuous use as a garrison. Based on a Star fort design, it remains virtually unaltered, and nowadays is open to visitors with exhibits and recreations showing use at different periods, while still serving as army barracks. Originally the depot of the Seaforth Highlanders and later the Queen's Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons). |
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Booking Info
For further information and booking
enquiries, please contact us using the details listed below:
Westbourne Guest House 50 Huntly Street Inverness
IV3 5HS
Scotland
UK.
richard@westbourne.org.uk
Tel / Fax : 01463 220700
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