Inverness · Self-guided audio walk

River Ness & the Ness Islands

A flat loop along the River Ness: an unfinished cathedral, a bishop's house that became a theatre, a free garden inside an old walled plot, and wooded islands strung together by white hanging footbridges.

6Stops
3.9 kmDistance
55+ minTime

Photo by Mike Pennington on Wikimedia Commons

This walk follows the River Ness out of Inverness and back, and it stays flat and free the whole way. It starts on the west bank at the cathedral Alexander Ross designed and never got to finish, then passes Eden Court, which grew around a bishop's twelve-bedroom house.

The path keeps the water on one side all the way south, through the pitches of the Bught to the Botanic Gardens, which sit inside the walled garden of a demolished 18th-century house and cost nothing to enter.

From there you cross onto the Ness Islands by a white suspension footbridge, walk the paths under the pines, and come back north on the east bank along Ladies Walk, finishing at the war memorial in Cavell Gardens. The ground under the whole circuit was bought with money raised in the town or given to it outright, mostly between the 1820s and the 1920s. That is why it is still open to anyone.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Must see

Photo by Ian S on Wikimedia Commons

Inverness Cathedral

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Alexander Ross's 1860s cathedral, left without the spires he drew

Alexander Ross designed this cathedral, and he was a local man, with his practice a few streets from here. The foundation stone went in in 1866, the doors opened in 1869, and it is built of red stone from Tarradale with nave columns of grey Peterhead granite. Look at the west front: Ross drew two spires for it, and they were never built, because the money ran out. What stands here is what Inverness could pay for.

This is a Scottish Episcopal cathedral, dedicated to Saint Andrew and the seat of the Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness, and it is open every day from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening. Coming in to pray, to light a candle or to sit through a service costs nothing. Visiting it as an attraction is six pounds for adults. Bishop Robert Eden, who got the whole thing started in 1866, had a congregation that thought a lot of him, and when he needed a house they paid for one.

That house is now a theatre, and it is your next stop.

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≈3 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Bill Harrison on Wikimedia Commons

Eden Court

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A bishop's house turned theatre, now the Highlands arts centre

Cùirt an Easbaig is the Gaelic name, the Bishop's Court, and that is what this started as. Bishop Eden's congregation built him a house on this spot in the 1870s: twelve bedrooms and its own private chapel, designed by Alexander Ross, the same architect as the cathedral. Eden had ten children, and by the time the house was finished they had grown up and left, so the family barely used it. It stayed the bishop's residence until 1947, then spent nearly twenty years as a residential training centre for nurses, and about ten more standing empty.

The theatre opened here in 1976, built around the old house after a plan to demolish it was dropped. The bedrooms became dressing rooms and the chapel became the green room where performers wait before going on. A rebuild in 2007 added a second theatre and two cinema screens. Eden Court calls itself Scotland's largest combined arts organisation: two theatres, two studios, two cinemas, three galleries.

In summer the lawn outside fills with the Under Canvas festival.

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≈13 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Mike Pennington on Wikimedia Commons

Bught Park

0:00

Ground sold to the town for pitches, not houses

This flat ground is the Bught, and it has belonged to the town since 1923. Duncan Grant, who owned the estate in the 18th century, asked for it to be sold to Inverness cheaply, with limits on how much of it could ever be built over and the rest kept for sport and recreation. Nothing happened for a very long time. The sale finally went through in 1923, when Colonel Alexander Redmond Bewley Warrand of the Seaforth Highlanders sold the Bught estate to the people of Inverness for 11,250 pounds.

That is why there are sports pitches here instead of streets of houses. The old Bught House, an 18th-century mansion, was pulled down in the 1960s and an ice rink went up on its site. So the ground under your feet is public because a landowner handed it over and the town paid for it, and you get to cross it for nothing, which was the arrangement from the start.

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≈9 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 6 continue in the app

Inverness Botanic Gardens

Walled garden and tropical house, free and open every day

in app

Ness Islands

Wooded islands joined by white footbridges over the Ness

in app

Inverness War Memorial

1922 memorial in Cavell Gardens, named for a wartime nurse

in app

Good to know

Before you go

Does the river walk cost anything?

The River Ness walk is almost entirely free: the riverside paths, the Ness Islands and the Botanic Gardens cost nothing to enter, and only the cathedral asks for money, £6 for adults visiting it as an attraction, while prayer, candles and services are free.

SourceInverness CathedralHigh Life Highland

Is the river walk flat?

The river walk stays flat for its whole length, with firm paths and no real climbs. Inside the Botanic Gardens the tropical and cactus houses have steps, and the gardens lend a wheelchair on request, so that is the section to judge if you have wheels. The suspension footbridges onto the Ness Islands are the narrowest part of the route.

SourceHigh Life Highland

Where can I have lunch on the river walk?

Lunch on the river walk is easiest at Café Botanics inside the walled garden, which serves lunches, cakes and coffee and takes last orders at 3.45pm. Near the cathedral end, Rendezvous Cafe on Church Street is open daily from 8am to 3pm and serves lunch from noon to 2.45pm.

SourceHigh Life HighlandRendezvous Cafe

Keep exploring

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Keep exploring

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Provenance · last verified September 27, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by Mike Pennington on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo by Ian S on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo by Bill Harrison on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo by Mike Pennington on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo by Stefano Bucciarelli on Unsplash

Photo by DS Pugh on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0