The Steeple

The Tolbooth Steeple rises above Bridge Street in the center of Inverness, close to the River Ness — a slender stone tower, around 150 feet tall, completed in 1791 to serve the town's tolbooth and jail. For two centuries it has been one of the fixed points of the Inverness skyline, the spire that orients you no matter which way you've wandered through the streets of the Highland capital. It survived an earthquake in 1816 that left the steeple slightly askew, later corrected.

Photographed in May 2023 during a trip through the Highlands. Inverness is the town the whole region funnels through — the place you keep returning to between the lochs and the glens — and the Steeple is the marker that tells you that you're back.