Great Scott - this must be Edinburgh!

On the way to the airport bus, I passed by the distinctive Scott Monument in Princes Street Gardens, commemorating Sir Walter Scott, novelist, playwright and poet.

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 name of the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, 45 year old joiner, draftsman, and self-taught architect. Kemp had feared his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would disqualify him, but his design was popular with the competition's judges, and in 1838 Kemp was awarded the contract to construct the monument.

John Steell was commissioned to design a monumental statue of Scott to rest in the space between the tower's four columns. Steell's statue, made from white Carrara marble, shows Scott seated, resting from writing one of his works with a quill pen and his dog Maida by his side.

The tower was completed in the autumn of 1844, with Kemp's son placing the finial in August of the year. The total cost was £16,154/7/11. When the monument was inaugurated on the 15th of August 1846, George Meikle Kemp himself was absent; walking home from the site on the foggy evening of the 6th of March 1844, Kemp had fallen into the Union Canal and drowned.