Sir Walter Scott was a popular poet and writer in his own time. He passed on 21 September 1832 and in the same year, the great and the good of the city agreed that they wished to commemorate his life with memorial. The city held a competition to design a monument to Scott. The winner was an entrant under the pseudonym ‘John Morvo,’ the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey*. Morvo was actually George Meikle Kemp, who received the contract to construct the monument in 1838.
The style of the Scott Monument is Victorian Gothic and is the second largest monument to a writer in the world. As a curious fact, Edinburgh’s main railway station is named after Scott’s ‘Waverley Novels.’ The foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1840 and was completed in autumn 1844. Unfortunately, Kemp was not present for the inauguration; he had drowned after falling into Edinburgh’s Union Canal.
It is possible to enter the Monument. The Monument displays 68 statues, including Scott himself, his dog Maida, as well as sixteen other Scottish poets.
Learn more about Sir Walter Scott and the Monument at the Writers’ Museum located on Lawnmarket.