Bed and breakfast availability
Inverness b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Inverness and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Inverness, Highland. Natural advantages have for long made Inverness the centre of a wide and distinctive region, and it is now generally and fittingly recognized as the “capital” of the Highlands. It lies in a level plain at the best crossing-place of the short river that flows out of Loch Ness and forms the northern end of the Great Glen of Scotland. Easily accessible from the sea and by air, it has become the focal point of the road and rail system in the North, where the main routes from the South across the mountains and from the East along the Moray Fifth coast converge and continue westwards and northwards into the heart of the Northern Highlands. This strategic position led to more permanent settlement earlier than has been found in the surrounding country. Carved stones, burial cairns, and hill-top forts remain to show that the site was occupied long before written history; the “boar stone” at Knocknagael and the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrick are among the most notable relics of their kind in Scotland, and a ring of monoliths at Druid-temple Farm near Leys overlooks the town from the sloping ground to the South. When St Columba visited King Brude in A.D. 565, this was the capital of the Pictish kingdom, and by the 12^th century a chartered burgh had been established, with a trading community living in the shelter of a royal castle.

Macbeth may have lived in the old castle, which has long since disappeared, but his predecessor, King Duncan, did not die there; however, the red stone product of the early Victorian era may occupy the same commanding position as the original castle held above the river crossing. And so it is with the bridges, ancient and modern: a structure of oak, which is the earliest known, was destroyed by the Lord of the Isles (Donald of Harlaw) in 1411; a stone bridge of seven arches, shown in many old prints of Inverness, stood for a century and a half before being swept away by a great flood in 1849; and the suspension bridge which succeeded it was replaced in 1961 by a graceful triple-span bridge.

The oldest building is Queen Mary's House in Bridge Street — a great deal altered since the visit in 1562 which its name recalls. An isolated clock-tower is all that is left of Cromwell's star-shaped fortress by the River Ness. Abertarif House (early 17^th century), Dunbar's Hospital (1668), the old High Church (1772 with earlier clock tower and spire), and the Steeple (1791), all in Church Street, are reminders of earlier days, and Union Street, Queensgate, Station Square, and part of Academy Street, all designed by Alexander Ross of Inverness, retain some of the formal dignity of late Victorian architecture. In the spiky Gothic Town House (1878), representing the period's more fanciful moods, members of the British Cabinet met in 1921 under Lloyd George to consider the Irish Treaty. The riverside presents a notable skyline of church spires of various denominations, and St Andrew's Cathedral (1866—9) is the centre of the modern bishopric of Moray, Ross, and Nairn.

Nearby towns: Alness, Aviemore, Beauly, Dingwall, Fort Augustus, Fort William, Grantown-on-Spey, Nairn

Nearby villages: Avoch, Conon Bridge, Culloden, Drumnadrochit, Fortrose, Kirkhill, Muir of Ord, Nethy Bridge, Rosemarkie, Strathpeffer

Have you decided to visit Inverness or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Inverness bed and breakfast (a Inverness B&B or Inverness b and b)
• a Inverness guesthouse
• a Inverness hotel (or motel)
• a Inverness self-catering establishment, or
• other Inverness accommodation

Accommodation in Inverness:

Find availability in a Inverness bed and breakfast, also known as B&B or b and b, guesthouse, small hotel, self-catering or other accommodation.