The Old High Church is the spiritual birthplace of Inverness. It sits upon St. Michael’s Mount, a natural hillock that has been a site of worship since the early days of Celtic Christianity. While the current building mostly dates from the 1770s, the tower is much older, with parts of it dating back to the 14th century. This is the original “High Kirk” of the city, and for centuries, it was the place where the most important civic and religious ceremonies of the Highlands took place, standing as the city’s oldest continuous place of worship.

The churchyard holds one of the grimmest stories in Highland history. Following the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the church was used as a prison for Jacobite rebels. The “Butcher” Cumberland’s troops used the graveyard as an execution ground. To this day, you can see the “Execution Stone”—a large granite slab where prisoners were reportedly leaned against and shot. If you look closely at the stone and the nearby church wall, you can still find the notches and marks traditionally believed to have been made by musket balls.

High up in the tower hangs the Curfew Bell, which has a history of its own. It was cast in 1658 and has been ringing across the city every night (except during the world wars) since 1720. Originally, it signaled the time when all fires in the town had to be extinguished to prevent the wooden houses from burning down. The sound of the Old High bell is a deep, resonant part of the city’s acoustic heritage, a sound that would have been familiar to every generation of Invernessians for the last 300 years.

Despite its dark associations with the Jacobite wars, the church is a place of profound peace. It is the regimental kirk of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, and the interior is filled with military colors and memorials to those who fell in the service of the Crown. Today, the Old High Church stands as a silent witness to the city’s entire history, from the early Pictish saints to the bloody aftermath of Culloden, remaining a pillar of Highland identity on the banks of the River Ness.