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 Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station.
The tower is 200 feet 6 inches (61.11 m) high, and has a series of viewing decks reached by a series of narrow spiral staircases giving panoramic views of central Edinburgh and its surroundings. The highest viewing deck is reached by a total of 287 steps (those who climb the steps can obtain a certificate commemorating the event). It is built from Binny sandstone quarried in nearby Ecclesmachan. Bill Bryson has described it as looking like a "gothic rocket ship".
Read more about Scott Monument: History, Modern Administration
Famous quotes containing the words scott and/or monument:
“Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you—like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist—or else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)