Cromarty Courthouse, formerly Cromarty Town House, is a municipal building in Church Street,

Cromarty Cromarty (; gd, Cromba, ) is a town, civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish and former royal burgh in Ross and Cromarty, in the Highland (council area), Highland area of Scotland. Situated at the tip of the Black Isle on the southern shore o ...

, in the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

area of Scotland. The structure, which is used as a museum, is a Category A listed building.

History

The first municipal building in Cromarty was an ancient

tolbooth A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of three essent ...

located on the east side of The Causeway. By the 1770s, the building had become dilapidated, and the future

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

for

Tain Burghs Tain Burghs, was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832, sometimes known as Northern Burghs. It was represented by one Member of ...

, George Ross of Pitkerrie, launched an initiative to erect several new structures in the town including a new town house. The new building was designed in the Scottish medieval style, built in coursed

rubble masonry Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...

with a

cement render Cement render or cement plaster is the application of a mortar mix of sand and cement, (optionally lime) and water to brick, concrete, stone, or mud brick. It is often textured, colored, or painted after application. It is generally used o ...

finish and was completed in spring 1773. It was known at that time as the Cromarty Town House. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto Church Street. The central bay, which was projected forward, was formed by a three-stage tower with a round headed doorway with an architrave in the first stage, a round headed

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

in the second stage and a

Diocletian window Diocletian windows, also called thermal windows, are large semicircular windows characteristic of the enormous public baths (''thermae'') of Ancient Rome. They have been revived on a limited basis by some classical revivalist architects in more ...

in the third stage; the tower was surmounted by an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A ''regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, wh ...

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fr ...

, a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , ...

. The outer bays were fenestrated by square windows on the ground floor and by round headed windows on the first floor. A clock, designed and manufactured by John Ross of

Tain Tain ( Gaelic: ''Baile Dhubhthaich'') is a royal burgh and parish in the County of Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland. Etymology The name derives from the nearby River Tain, the name of which comes from an Indo-European root meaning 'flow'. The ...

, was installed in the cupola in 1782. Internally, the principal room was the courtroom on the first floor. Following the

disruption of 1843 The Disruption of 1843, also known as the Great Disruption, was a schism in 1843 in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. The main conflict was over whether the Church of S ...

, when a large group of

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exp ...

ministers broke away from the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...

to form the Free Church of Scotland, an unpopular new priest was appointed to the Parish of Resolis. A milkmaid, Margaret Cameron, who had taken part in demonstrations against this new appointment, was imprisoned in the town house and, in September 1843, a group of people from Resolis caused a local sensation by breaking into the town house and freeing her. Improvements, including a new prisoner cell block to the rear of the town house, were completed to a design by Thomas Brown in 1847. As well as serving as a judicial venue, the building also served as the meeting place of the burgh council. The building continued to serve in that capacity for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Ross and Cromarty District Council was formed at

Dingwall Dingwall ( sco, Dingwal, gd, Inbhir Pheofharain ) is a town and a royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It has a population of 5,491. It was an east-coast harbour that now lies inland. Dingwall Castle was once the biggest cas ...

in 1975. The building was restored with the support of Ross and Cromarty District Council in the early 1990s and re-opened as the Cromarty Courthouse Museum in 1991. Artefacts placed on display in the museum included items relating to the life of the writer and translator,

Sir Thomas Urquhart Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611–1660) was a Scottish aristocrat, writer, and translator. He is best known for his translation of the works of French Renaissance writer François Rabelais to English. Biography Urquhart was born to Thomas Urquhart ...

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1773 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Highland (council area) Ross and Cromarty

History

See also

References