Scott monument

Scott Monument is the name of a Monument of Style neogothic located at Edinburgh in Scotland. It was built in the honor of Sir Walter Scott, great writer born in the city.

This monument is located in the gardens of '' Princes Street '', opposite Jenners , the department store of Princes Street , close to the Gare of Edinburgh Waverley. The tower measures 61 Mètre S top and a Staircase spiral of 287 steps makes it possible to reach the small platform of observation located close to the sommet.
The tower is built in Schiste coming from the town of Livingston. The oil which continues to run out of the stones contributed to give to the monument its color noirâtre. Indeed, the town air, under the time victorienne, was very polluted (Edinburgh is called Auld Reekie , the smoked out old woman) and dust of the atmosphere was stuck to the stones.

After the death of Walter Scott in 1832, a coucours at open summer to draw the plans of a monument in its honor. A participant presented himself under the pseudonym of " John Morvo " , name of the medieval architect of the Abbey of Melrose. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, cabinetmaker, draftsman and self-educated architect. Kemp did not want to be presented under its true identity because it feared that its lack of training in architecture and its weak notoriety penalize it, but the drawings which it presented (similar to those which it had vainly proposed a few years earlier for the Cathédrale of Glasgow) met a certain success among the judges and Kemp gained this contest in 1838.

John Steell was designated to draw the statue of Scott being between the four columns of the tower. The statue, made white marble, represents Walter Scott sitting, resting after having written a text with the feather.

Following a decree of the Parliament authorizing it, the construction of the tower began in 1840 and lasted approximately four years. The tower was supplemented with the autumn 1844, with the son of Kemp placing the Faîteau in August of the same year. Unfortunately George Meikle Kemp could not attend the inauguration on August 15th, because it drowned while falling into the Union Channel on March 6th same year.

The monument is managed today by the department of the museums of the Edinburgh City Council .

External bonds

official Page of the monument
History of the monument
Biography of George Meikle Kemp

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