On your left, spot the big grey-stone church with steep slate roofs, three tall arched windows, and a little round window high up in the front gable.
This is Crown Church, sitting smartly at the meeting of two busy roads near the city centre, like it’s been politely supervising Inverness traffic since the dawn of the 1900s. It began life as a Free Church, and its first minister, Reverend William Todd, was famous for preaching that could fairly rattle your ribs. When the foundation stone went down on 24 November 1900, they tucked time-capsule jars into the base: newspapers, coins, council minutes, and church records-Inverness in a bottle, for some future nosey parker to discover.
The architect was local lad James Robert Rhind, a man who loved bold, confident details-he even went on to design several Carnegie-funded libraries after a £100,000 gift in 1901 (around £13 million today). Inside, there’s a proper pipe organ too: three manuals and pedals, built to fill the place with sound.
Ready for HM Prison Inverness? Just walk southeast for 7 minutes.
