Scott Memorial

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Scott Memorial (Edinburgh). This tribute to the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott dominates Princes Street, despite being described by Ruskin as ‘a small vulgar Gothic steeple on the ground’. The design of water-colourist and self-taught architect George Meikle Kemp, it was completed in 1846, two years after Kemp was found drowned in the Union canal. The seated figure of Scott, wrapped in a shepherd's plaid, his hound Maida at his feet, was sculpted by Sir John Steell. Other sculptors carved the 84 statuettes of Scott's characters and Scottish historical figures which decorate the ornate spire.

June Cochrane

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