The Invergordon Archive

Regarding the crest...am sure that the figure inside the shield is portrayed on the front of the old town hall ...it doesn't show the top part nor the inscription...but the remainder looks very familiar..

Duncan I think you are right......
Admin: re the motto, which I am assuming to be in Gaelic as no words match in Latin....
Loisgin or loisg, means to burn, consume or set flame to
Agus (easier one) means AND
Soilleirgnum (closest I could find is Soilleirg) also means Bright or Clear or Visible...
So, would it be Burn bright and Clear....

This leads me to wonder if Invergordon ever had a crest or coat of arms and would this have been it?
I pass this on to anyone else who may have a better translation...another interesting feature of Invergordon.....

This picture has been taken many years ago..if one looks to the front of the church and to beyond that you can see a line of trees in the far distance. Once the tanks were constructed this view changed so it must pre-date the construction of the tank farm.

I just received the following translation from the Clan Macrae Society here in Canada...
I will/would burn and I will/would make clear....so I wasn't too far off base.

Apparently The Cadboll's of Cromarty and of Invergordon Castle have the same motto on their crest, all very interesting.....

This is the crest of the Macleods of Cadboll, who acquired Invergordon Castle from the Gordons via the Mackenzies of Tarbat, and one of whom, Robert Bruce Aeneas Macleod, was first Provost of Invergordon (mid 1800s). The Macleods lived in the various castles till the last one was sold to the Martineaus in the 1920s. They were descended from the Gaelic-speaking Macleods of Lewis, whose motto this is: I burn and I give light, referring both to the Macleod symbol of the "sun in splendour", and their earlier coastal watchman role (beacons kept alight on hills). The Neptune figure is Invergordon's original blazon/seal, before the town got full burgh arms in the 1960s. See the full Macleod crest on the Invergordon Museum marriage stone. The motto may well also reference the Biblical burning bush, which is a symbol associated with both the Church of Scotland and the Free Church, with the Latin motto Nec tamen consumebatur - I burn but am not consumed. Coincidentally appropriate for this particular postcard.

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