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Verses on the wall
The following are pictures of verses engraved into the wall of a building directly across the road from the main hall on the first floor of the Inverness Town Hall.
If anyone has some knowledge about how the verses got there (it is thought that the rooms were at one time occupied by a Christian group) please leave what information you have below or e-mail the Editor. Thank you!
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Christians Together, 04/05/2008 |
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| | Peter Carr (Guest) | 06/05/2008, 17:40 | | I suspect that the people in the know won't necessarily be on the internet! Might be worth asking around the churches local to the verses in question (i.e. Castle St Baptist Church etc).
| | | Fiona Thomson (Guest) | 08/05/2008, 07:22 | | Hi All
We get asked a lot in the shop (Wesley Owen) about the scripture on the wall, so i asked a friendly local librarian who gave me this response, hope its helpful:
There are actually two stories about the texts on the wall opposite the Town House.
In his Historic Inverness, published in 1981, Gerald Pollitt writes:
In 1815 an Atheneum was established opposite the Town House on land said previously to have belonged to the knights of S. John of Jerusalem, “The Hospitalers”. Carved pm the frontage were , at this time still are, a number of biblical texts , and new Councillors were warned that, after civic receptions, they might be asked to read these texts whilst standing at the Town House door as a test of sobriety. During my lengthy period as a councillor I never knew of anyone failing this test.
Pollitt is considered by my Local History colleagues to be generally reliable, but there is also a story that the texts were carved at the request of Provost John MacKenzie around 1870, with the aim of impressing on the councilors attending meetings at the Town House that both their civic and their private duties should be carried out with God firmly in mind.
I suppose the issue is whether the building opposite the Town House is as old as 1815!
Whatever the truth of the matter, the lettering of the texts was painted in around 1996 to make it more distinctive after a campaign by the Civic Trust with funding from Inverness and Nairn Enterprise.
| | | Fiona Thomson (Guest) | 08/05/2008, 07:25 | | Sorry clicked "ok" before I added this addition:
(The "I" is from the same source as my previous post)
I heard a story that the building on which the texts are carved was used as a meeting place by a Christian Brethren congregation in the mid to late 20th century, and that they used to hold open air meetings outside the town house. But I haven’t had a chance to confirm this.
| | | Peter Carr (Guest) | 08/05/2008, 08:22 | | "new Councillors were warned that, after civic receptions, they might be asked to read these texts whilst standing at the Town House door as a test of sobriety. During my lengthy period as a councillor I never knew of anyone failing this test."
If the current batch of councillors have no concern for our Christian Heritage, they might at least pay heed to their predecessors!
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