The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

The Hospital of Inverness. 105
and in that case, the same or any part thereof that shall not
be so expended to the use and at the time aforesaid, shall
be sequestrate and ingrossed with the half of the stock of
the said lands for a settled fund for affording annual rent in
all time thereat'ter for the said use, and no part thereof to
be impaired for that or any other use whatsomever."
Under the recent Pxlucational Endowments Act, the
half set apart for education comes under the administration
of the Directors of the Ro)'al Academy and GoNcrnors of the
Inverness Educational trust. These lands ]:)robabl\- belonged
in early times to the Chisholms of Strathglass. Sir Robert
Chisholm of Chisholm, who was constable of Urquhart
Castle, granted a charter of certain lands near the town to
the Church of the Holy Cross in Inverness, dated on the
feast of the Epiphany, 1362. Frequent mention of the altar
of the " Holy Cross in Inverness" occurs from 1363 onwards,
and also in old deeds of the lands of the altar of the Hoh'
Cross, and as these lands seem to ha\e been known from a
ver}' early date b}- the nameof Diriebught { 'I ir navi Bochd),
the land of the poor, it is probable that the>- were set apart
for charitable purposes. At the Reformation they would in
that case have been included in the grant of churches and
other ecclesiastical property by charters from Queen Mary
and James VI. to the Magistrates of Inverness, and were
probably disposed of b\' them.
At anyrate we find it recorded in a Minute of the Kirk-
Session, dated 22nd April, 171 3— " The sd da\- it was over-
tured that some part of the Hospital Stock might be better
settled upon soild land than b\- bond, and seeing the lands
of Dearbught were to be exposed to sale, the Session might
consider of it. In the interim compeared Alexr. Paterson,
apothecarie, with whom the Committee having conferred
about these lands, he told that he hade six thousand merks
with five guineas in his offer for it. This to be represented
to the next Session."
Apparently Mr George Duncan bought the lands him-
self, and settled them in the terms mentioned above, and he