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The Scott Monument is a victorian gothic monument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It stands in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, opposite the Jenners department store on Princes Street and near to Waverley Station. The tower is 200 1/2 feet high, and the small viewing deck near the top 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.

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 1838Events January 6 Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the telegraph. January 8 Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code) January 12 Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon flee Ohio for Missouri Marc 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, make from white Carrara marbleThis page is about the metamorphic rock. For the game with little glass spheres see marbles. Marble is metamorphosed limestone, composed of fairly pure calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, Ca C O). It is extensively used for sculpture, as an, shows Scott seated, resting from writing one of his works with a quill pen.

Following an act of parliament permitting it, construction began in 18401840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). Events January 3 One of the predecessor papers to the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia, The Port Phillip Herald is founded by George Cavanaugh. January 10 Uniform penny postage and ran for nearly four years. The tower was completed in the autumn of 1844Events January 15 University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana. February 27 The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti. February 28 A gun on the USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United, with Kemp's son placing the finialThe spigot or mounting for a Weather Vane also a top most spike or embellishment for a building or structure, made from stone or metal. in August of the year. When the monument was inaugurated in the 15th of August, George Meikle Kemp himself was absent; walking home from the site on the foggy evening of the 6th of March that year, Kemp had fallen into the Union CanalThe Union Canal is a 50 km (31. 5 mile) contour canal from Lochrin Basin in Edinburgh to Falkirk where it meets the Forth and Clyde Canal. Originally used for transporting coal, competition from the railways caused it to close to commercial use in the 193 and drowned.

The monument is now administered by the museums department of Edinburgh City Council.