Town House Tours to begin
Tours of the Inverness Town House are to begin in June.
The tours will be promoted through High Life Highland which manages the Inverness Castle Viewpoint. This new attraction has proved extremely popular and has made a valuable contribution to the City centre visitor offering.
From the outside alone the Town House is acknowledged as the most visually
impressive building in the City centre and the lavish interior within is a stunning
example of Victorian opulence, with portrait paintings, stained glass windows and other artefacts on view. It is regarded by locals and visitors to the City as the jewel in Inverness’s architectural crown, particularly since the stunning renovation work was completed this year.
Provost of Inverness, Helen Carmichael said: “The refurbishment of the Town House has resulted in bringing this historic building back into splendid condition and it should be enjoyed and accessible to the public. The open days were a great success and thousands flocked here to marvel at the wonderful interior. Providing guided tours will provide a further new visitor attraction in the City centre with a real “Wow” factor.”
In order to test out both demand and expectation and operational practicalities, it is proposed to begin offering tours on a fairly modest scale. This approach would afford the opportunity to ‘fine tune’ tours and, if appropriate, to increase capacity.
Considering the working pattern of the building, two tours will be offered each Thursday afternoon, each of approximately an hour’s duration. Tuesday’s have also been “pencilled in” and, if there is evidence of demand for additional capacity, tours could also be offered then.
Initially tours will be offered during the main visitor season, from June until the end of September. Similarly, if there is evidence of demand for additional capacity, this can be reviewed.
The tours will be led by staff from Inverness Castle Viewpoint and Inverness Museum & Art Gallery (IMAG), be bookable online or at IMAG and, initially, offer a maximum of twelve places on each tour, subject to review on evaluation.
As the ground floor of the Town House is not accessible to wheelchair users, the ground floor tour will be filmed and available on an IPad for those customers to view on the first floor.
Charges for adults will be £7 and £4 for children.
ends