Fort George

Both these photographs were taken from Fortrose, in the Black Isle, across the Moray Firth. The soldiers used to row over to here with their blankets for washing.



Fort George sits behind its massive grass-topped artillery defences on an isolated spit of land jutting into the Moray Firth at Ardersier, 11 miles north east of Inverness. Following the 1745 uprising and the nearby Battle of Culloden that effectively ended it, Fort George was intended to be a final solution to the threat posed by the Highlanders, particularly the Jacobites.

Fort George was the brainchild of King George II's Military Engineer, William Skinner, who began work in 1748, finally completing the Fort in 1769, well over budget (at today's prices it would cost nearly £1 billion), but possibly the strongest fortification ever built in the UK. Unfortunately by the time he finished it was no longer needed. However Fort George is still an operational army barracks, having changed little since its completion.