Inverness Town House to get facelift during revamp

THE historic Town House in Inverness is to be wrapped in specialist material and decorated with a full-size image of its frontage during the start of £4.2 million repairs.

Inverness Town House, which will be repaired at a cost of more than four million pounds. Picture: Wikimedia/CC

Highland Council has asked for the wrapping to help hide scaffolding while work is carried out on the building.

This week, work will begin on the first part of a three-phase, three-year project to maintain the structure and public safety of the historic category A-listed Inverness Town House building.

Laing Traditional Masonry (LTM), who previously worked on the Inverness Steeple project, have been awarded a £1.2million contract for the first phase of works, including stone repairs and replacement and roof repairs.

As the scaffolding will be present on the front exterior of the Town House for two years, the council - recognising the visual impact that this will have on the city centre location - has specified the need for a specialist building wrap to be installed on the scaffolding which will depict a full-sized image of the front of the Town House.

Ground level hoardings will also be installed depicting images of the history of the Town House.

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Inverness City leader, councillor Ian Brown, said: “These essential works will help to safeguard the future of the Town House for generations to come.”

The Town House is owned by the Inverness Common Good Fund. The last major repairs to the Town House stonework were undertaken in 1956.

Since then, small localised repairs have been carried out. In 2009 an inspection of the Town House reported deterioration at a greater rate than expected.

In May 2013, a fully detailed survey was undertaken which found that repairs were required to the stonework, roof and windows of the building.

Inverness Town House, on the corner of Castle Street and High Street, was built between 1878 and 1882 by the architects Matthews and Lawrie, Inverness. The building cost £12,500 to build.

The building hosted the only gathering of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s UK government cabinet outside London.

He was on holiday in Gairloch, Wester Ross, and brought his ministers together in Inverness in September 1921. The meeting was called following Ireland’s rejection of the King.