The Scott Monument: A Gothic Rocket for a Novelist
Why is it significant?
Stand at the foot of the Scott Monument and follow its blackened spire up and up, through tiers of pinnacles, arches and flying buttresses, to a tip more than sixty metres above you.
Key Facts
| Place | The Scott Monument: A Gothic Rocket for a Novelist |
|---|---|
| Address | East Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh EH2 2EJ, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95240, -3.19330 |
| Part of Walk | Painted, Carved and Planted: Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens and the Mound |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand at the foot of the Scott Monument and follow its blackened spire up and up, through tiers of pinnacles, arches and flying buttresses, to a tip more than sixty metres above you. Under the canopy at the bottom sits Sir Walter Scott in white marble, a book in his hand and his deerhound Maida at his feet. It is the largest monument to a writer anywhere in the world.
The design was chosen in a competition in the late 1830s, and the winner was a surprise. George Meikle Kemp was a joiner and self-taught draughtsman who had spent years walking around Scotland sketching medieval abbeys such as Melrose. He entered under a pseudonym, John Morvo, borrowing the name of a medieval master mason of Melrose Abbey. It was an extraordinary choice: a monumental public commission for a man with no architectural practice at all.
Kemp never saw it finished. On a foggy evening in March 1844, walking home along the Union Canal, he fell into the water and drowned. The monument was completed in 1846 without him, and you will find his grave later on this walk, in St Cuthbert's kirkyard at the far end of the gardens.
Look closely at the niches: they hold dozens of small statues of characters from Scott's novels and poems, a stone crowd of heroines, outlaws and kings. The marble Scott was carved by John Steell, a sculptor you will meet again by the Floral Clock. And the dark colour is not paint. It is generations of coal smoke soaked into the sandstone, and restorers decided against scrubbing it off because that would have harmed the stone.
If your legs are willing, two hundred and eighty-seven steps lead up ever narrower stairs to the highest gallery, with the whole city at your feet. Afterwards, walk west through the gardens towards the two Greek temples at the foot of the Mound, and stop at the one further from Princes Street, the Scottish National Gallery.