' The museum demonstrates the strengths -- and weaknesses -- of the
Scottish tourist industry in general'.
NIGHT has fallen on the firth and the oil rigs, festooned with lights,
sparkle like Christmas trees. The visitor to Cromarty gawps at this
collection of industrial hardware parked just offshore. But so fixed a
feature of the landscape have the rigs become that the local children do
not give them as much as a glance as they pass by on more important
business.
Round the corner, up one of the burgh's narrow streets, there is a
more charming discovery -- a local museum among the best of its kind.
The excellence of Cromarty Courthouse has been widely recognised. It was
Scottish Museum of the Year in 1991 and won a Europa Nostra award in
1992.
It is the fruit of local dedication -- they started raising money to
restore the courthouse 30 years ago. It is supported by an enlightened
local authority, Ross and Cromarty District Council, and is run by a
professional curator, David Alston.
The museum of my youth was a dead fish on a plate. The visitor was
invited to stare at inanimate objects behind glass. Fustian prose
described them. Cromarty Courthouse is as much state of the art as its
resources permit: it is animated and animating. But it is not
trivialised a la Disneyland: it imparts a great deal of information
elegantly and painlessly.
The first surprise, after you have negotiated the narrow steps, is an
animatronic figure of Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660). He was a bigwig
who lived in Cromarty Tower. He was a royalist, a soldier, a scholar
and, above all, an eccentric.
He fought at Turiff against the Covenanters in 1639. He withdrew to
London, where he was knighted by Charles I. He published his Epigrams
and later, after travelling abroad, a trigonometrical work which remains
incomprehensible.
In 1649 he joined the Inverness rising when Charles reached Cromarty
on his odyssey to gain the throne as Charles II. Sir Thomas followed him
to Worcester where, in the rout of the royalists, he lost most of his
manuscripts and was imprisoned.
He published his genealogy, an invective against Scottish
presbyterianism, a scheme for a universal language, and a translation of
Rabelais said to be more robust and uninhibited than the original. This
was his last two-fingered salute to puritanism. He died abroad, having
lived in troubled times.
If you press the right button on the display, the model of Sir Thomas
will discourse on one of a number of these subjects. The head rolls, the
lips move, and a querulous but powerful voice booms round the room as
Sir Thomas reflects, for example, on the works of Rabelais.
Upstairs there is the courtroom where more models re-enact a
simplified version of an eighteenth-century trial. We seat ourselves in
the public gallery. The presiding judge, Sir John Gordon of Invergordon,
fixes us, we fancy, with a stern and beady eye. The trial begins.
A local woman is accused, with the connivance of two men, of stealing
rope from the hemp factory which, along with a brewery, was founded in
the burgh by the improving laird of Cromarty, George Ross.
They are convicted. The men have volunteered for military service and
are freed on that basis. She is sentenced to be paraded round the burgh
as a thief and then to be banished for seven years. This is a cruel
enough punishment, since vagrants have no claim on parish poor relief.
Only one of the models, that of the judge, moves: the others are
immobile and we simply hear their voices. That is because of a shortage
of money. Mr Alston shows me the innards of Sir John Gordon. His
movements are created by a machine fitted inside his body and driven by
compressed air. It had to be imported from Florida. It is a pity,
remarks Mr Alston, that some UK manufacturer does not supply the goods.
The museum demonstrates the strengths -- and weaknesses -- of the
Scottish tourist industry in general. It has charm; it is an asset in an
increasingly important sector; it is fun to visit, and leads the curious
visitor gently and lucidly into fascinating aspects of our history. In a
country which sometimes seems to live in ignorance of its own past,
where an English view of history is constantly foisted on it, that is a
valuable service in itself.
Its weakness is also representative: it is underfunded. Its grant from
the local authority is reducing. The idea is that it will be replaced by
admission money. This depends in turn on successful marketing and a
favourable economic climate (attendances last year were down on 1991).
A successful museum will sustain fragile local services (the
restaurant opposite is for sale; the coffee shop round the corner
struggles gamely; and in the region at large there has been a spate of
hotel liquidations).
The administration of Scottish tourism is, by common consent, a mess.
The Scottish Office has invited submissions so that it can review the
responsibilities of the various bodies, and a ''turf war'' has broken
out among them. Scottish Enterprise wants more of the action; the
Scottish Tourist Board wants to acquire the marketing functions of
Highlands and Islands Enterprise which, not surprisingly, resists. Then
there is the network of regional tourist boards.
The solution that may be emerging is for the enterprise bodies to take
on the task of infrastructural development and for the STB to do the
marketing, classification and control of standards. It seems a sensible
division of labour. One thing is sure: it is time we took this important
industry more seriously.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article