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Summary

Description

Circa 1800-1820. 2-storey with upper breaking eaves, 3-bay, symmetrical Gothic house with later central, multi-gabled timber porch. Tooled, squared and coursed red sandstone with ashlar margins. Harl pointing to rear elevation. Base course. Pointed arched windows. Hoodmoulds at ground floor. Gablet dormers. Centre 1st floor window blind. Replacement dormers and single storey addition to rear elevation. The building is set on ground lower than street level.

Multi-pane glazing with simple Y tracery, in timber frames. Piended, slated roof. Central, coped stack and octagonal cans.

Statement of Special Interest

Muirtown Cottage was built between 1800-1820 and is one of the oldest surviving houses in the Muirtown area of Inverness, which developed in the twentieth century. The house is a unusual example of a small-scale domestic property in the Gothic revival style.

Muirtown was owned by the Duff family and dominated by Muirtown House (see separate listing), construction of which started in 1800 for Major Hugh Robert Duff, the editor of the Culloden Papers. G Taylor and A Skinner's Survey and Maps of the Roads of North Britain or Scotland Plate 60 of 1776 depicts an earlier house with a road, marked Beauly Rd, to the north of this property and it is on this road that Muirtown cottage was located. Muirtown Cottage is first evident on the Great Reform Act Plan (1832) but it is likely that the cottage was built around the beginning of the 19th century. The cottage was originally at street level, as indicated in a photo dated 1957 (Canmore), but the road was raised in the late 20th century. This photo also indicates that the porch has been changed from a single gabled porch to a porch with gables to each side. The Muirtown area was changed significantly by the construction of the Caledonian Canal and Muirtown basin and locks.

Muirtown Cottage is in front of Muirtown basin, which was constructed as a port for Inverness and part of the Caledonian Canal. Boats would wait in the basin before leaving the canal by Clachnaharry Sea lock to the northwest or ascending Muirtown flight of locks and onwards to Loch Ness to the southwest. The Caledonian Canal is one of five canals surviving in Scotland and connects Inverness in the north to Corpach, near Fort William in the west. Construction work started in 1804 and the first complete journey was made on 23-24 October 1822

Category changed from B to C and listed building record updated as part of the Scottish Canals estate review (2013-14).

References

Bibliography

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