Scott Monument

Following Scott's death in 1832, a competition was held to design a monument to him. An unlikely entrant went under the pseudonym "John Morvo", the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, 45 year-old joiner, draftsman, and self-taught architect. He had feared that his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would disqualify him, but his design was popular with the competition's judges, and they awarded him the contract to construct the monument in 1838. John Steell was commissioned to design a monumental statue of Scott to rest in the centre space within the tower's four columns. It is made from white Carrara marble and shows Scott seated,…

The tower is 200 ft high and has viewing platforms reached by a series of spiral staircases giving panoramic views of central Edinburgh and its surroundings. The highest platform is reached by a total of 287 steps. It is built from Binny sandstone quarried near Ecclesmachan in West Lothian. It is placed on axis with South St David Street, one of the two streets leading off St Andrew Square to Princes Street, and is a focal point within that vista, its scale being large enough to screen the Old Town behind. Its size and elevated position cause it to dominate the eastern section of the Princes Street Gardens.

The monument is featured prominently in the 2012 film Cloud Atlas, as a location which the character Robert Frobisher frequents. An imagined copy of the monument is featured in the 1899 painting by James Ford, Holiday Time in Cape Town, depicting a Victorian era imagined utopian future Cape Town.