Scott Moument

Scott Moument ... Gardens in Edinburgh, opposite the Jenners department store on Princes Street and near to Waverley Station. The tower is 200.5 feet or 61.1 metres tall, and the small viewing deck near the top — which gives a panoramic view of central Edinburgh and its surroundings — is reached by a narrow spiral staircase with 287 steps. It is built from Binnie shale quarried in nearby Livingston; the oil which continues to leech from its matrix has helped to glue the notoriously filthy atmosphere of victorian Edinburgh (then nicknamed "Auld Reekie" — old smokey) to the tower, leaving it an unintended sooty-black colour. It is often noted for looking like a 'gothic missile'. 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, forty-five year old joiner, draftsman, and self-taught architect. Kemp had feared his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would disqualify him, but his design (which was similar to an unsuccessful one he had earlier submitted for the design of Glasgow Cathedral) was popular with the competition's judges, and in 1838 Kemp was awarded the contract to construct the monument.