The Scott Monument

Edinburgh's great Gothic spire — this fine art photograph of the Scott Monument captures one of the most dramatic and distinctive structures in any European city, the soaring Victorian Gothic tower that rises above Princes Street Gardens in the heart of Edinburgh, a monument to Scotland's greatest novelist that is as extraordinary as the man it commemorates. The Scott Monument was completed in 1846 and designed by George Meikle Kemp, a self-taught architect who won the commission in open competition and died before the tower was finished, drowned in the Union Canal. It stands 61 metres tall — the second largest monument to a writer in the world — its sandstone blackened over the decades to a deep, dramatic darkness that gives it an almost Gothic intensity. The tower is encrusted with 64 statuettes of characters from Sir Walter Scott's novels, and at its base sits a white Carrara marble statue of Scott himself with his deerhound Maida. This photograph captures the monument's extraordinary presence — the intricate stone tracery, the soaring pinnacles, the way it rises against the Edinburgh sky with a confidence and ambition that still astonishes nearly two centuries after it was built. Printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper with optional acrylic glass or Alu-Dibond mounting for a gallery-quality finish.