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Alexander Nimmo was Rector of Inverness Academy in 1806 when the Commission for Highland Roads and Bridges employed him to survey the boundary of Inverness-shire with the adjacent counties. During his survey Nimmo kept a manuscript journal of his 'perambulation'; a valuable and interesting first-hand account of aspects of the shire and the Highlands at a most important time in their history, and a seminal document in Nimmo’s personal transformation from schoolmaster to engineer.

This is the first time that Nimmo’s journal has been published. This book presents a transcription of the Inverness journal along with an introduction and commentaries, and includes a map showing the territory covered by Nimmo during his ‘perambulation’.

Nimmo resigned his Rector's position in 1811 and took up a post as an engineer with the Commission for the Bogs of Ireland, and he went on to complete amazingly comprehensive and unsurpassed surveys, maps and reports on the Iveragh peninsula of Co. Kerry and Connemara, Co. Galway, playing an iconic role in Ireland in surveying those then isolated regions.

Nimmo was both a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Hardback; 192pp; 2011

ISBN: 9781904890744

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