INTRODUCING CROMARTY ARTS TRUST

....life itself is a school, and Nature always a fresh study ... the man who keeps his eyes and his mind open will always find fitting, though, it may be, hard schoolmasters, to speed him on in his lifelong education.

Hugh Miller, My Schools and Schoolmasters

Cromarty Arts Trust is a leading organisation for conservation and enhancement of the culture of our community. It is contributing several enormously important initiatives to mark Hugh Miller's Bicentenary, including

• A Hugh Miller Trail, which will identify through on-the-spot outdoor intepretation several key sites associated with Miller, including the Cromarty Links, where the town's herring fishery was situated; Cromarty Bay, where Miller discovered the Old Red Sandstone Devonian fossil fish species, some of which bear his name; Eathie Beach, the Jurassic and Devonian fossil beds where he began geologising.
  A brochure is also in production which will indicate the key locations of Miller's fieldwork across Scotland, while on his famed summer "rambles."
  
  
• A Hugh Miller standing stone, in Caithness flagstone, to be inscribed in situ in Cromarty Harbour by the internationally renowned sculptor Richard Kindersley, between 12th and 23rd August next, which will honour the cleared Highland emigrants who departed from the port for the New World, as witnessed and reported by Miller.
  
  
• Eathie Field Station. A project is under way, managed jointly between the Trust and Scottish Natural Heritage, to convert the old, ruined salmon fishing bothy on Eathie Beach into a visitor centre, which will explore three themes - the rich flora and fauna of the foreshore; the history of the fishing; and Miller's geological work there and writings.

The Cromarty Arts Trust was established in 1987 for

• the conservation of buildings of historical or architectural importance especially in Cromarty
  
  
• the advancement of education especially within Cromarty including the establishment and running of an Arts/Design Centre
  
  
• the conservation of natural features, the landscape, ecology and character of the area
  
  
• the stimulation of public interest in the history, character, beauty and wildlife of the area

For much of the twentieth century Cromarty was in severe economic decline despite its unique architectural and natural heritage; by the 1970s some of the town's finest buildings, including the eighteenth century Brewery and Grade A listed Stables of Cromarty House, were in a state of dereliction. It was against this background that the Trust mapped out its original goals of restoring and converting the Brewery and Stables to create a Study Centre. Building on a tradition of learning established by Cromarty's two greatest polymaths, Sir Thomas Urquhart and Hugh Miller, its intention was to establish a new use for the buildings which would help act as a catalyst for regeneration whilst being compatible with the community.

Thanks to the generosity of its charitable, private and public donors (to date the Trust has raised over ?870,000) the Trust has been able to achieve these goals, completing the restoration of the Brewery in 1989 and the Stables in 1995. The Brewery, which provides accommodation for 22 people is managed as a field centre by Robert Gordon University for its own students and for a wide variety of other groups. The Stables provides an open plan workshoop and a large studio, and caters for a broad range of cultural, artistic, and training activities. It also has a flat which has been used by the Trust for a series of artists-in-residence.

The Trust has also supported the University of Aberdeen's Marine Research Station which is based at the Cromarty Lighthouse and has established an international reputation for its important research on the area's seals, dolphins and other marine mammals.

And it contributed substantially to the cost of creating this website.

The Trust is committed to supporting and building up academic and cultural activity in the town, believing that Cromarty has a valuable role to play as a centre of learning which embraces the heritage of the past and the technology of the twenty-first century.

I would have encouraged likewise men of literature, and exquisite spirits for invention, to converse with us for the better civilising of the country and accommodating it with a variety of goods, whether honest, pleasant, or profitable; by virtue whereof, the professors of all sciences, liberal disciplines, arts active and factive, mechanick trades, and whatever concernes either virtue or learning, practical or theoretick, had been cherished for fixing their abode in it.

Sir Thomas Urqhuart, A Dream of the Future Prosperity of Cromarty

Trustees: John Nightingale, Eleanor Murray MBE, Philip Hamilton-Grierson OBE, Alexander Nightingale, Lester Borley CBE, Robin Lingard, John McNaught.

For further information, please contact John Nightingale, 25 West Square, London SE11 4SP (0207 735 1238) or Lester Borley, 4 Belford Place, Edinburgh EH4 3DH (0131 332 2364).

The creation of this website has been generously financially supported by Ross and Cromarty Enterprise (RACE) and the Cromarty Arts Trust (CAT).