Built For Battles

Designed for war and preserved in peace, Fort George welcomes visitors where soldiers once waited

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“Is this place basically the Death Star?” I ask John, Historic Scotland’s monument manager for Fort George, as we walk the grass ramparts, looking out to the sparkling sea.

It is a leading question. I have long harboured a resentment towards the fort - the huge British military base on the Moray Firth - built to suppress Highland culture after Culloden.

"A lot of locals see it like that," John concedes. "They say they wouldn't step over the door because of what it stands for."

Fort George is still a working barracks, but it is also a visitor attraction. Historic Scotland are pushing to emphasise the positive impact on wellbeing that historic visits can have.

Glaswegian academics have argued that activities like walking round the ramparts at Fort George get the blood going, creating happy hormones.

They say that learning about the past helps us to feel more grounded and gives us a greater sense of connection and belonging to our place. The chats we have with staff and other visitors help to break social isolation. All of this contributes to wellbeing.

The team here at Fort George are leaning into this wellbeing drive. They have developed walking paths, and they link up with wildlife teams to contribute to local ecological research. Wildflowers are encouraged to grow in the old defences, too.

So why am I so against the place?

For one, I dislike how aggressively it sits in the landscape. I had approached on foot along the beach path, and the horizon is interrupted by red stone walls that rise straight up 20 or 30 feet high, and every dozen or so paces along is a gun port with a heavy cannon pointing out at us. It is as hostile as any of the British forts out in the empire.