Scottish Monuments and Memorials

This is an extraordinary book, with its origin in theauthor's long-standing interest inmonuments and memorials, arising from many years of wandering Scotland's hillsand glens. The Covid-19 lockdown provided an opportunity to look into this moreseriously, and the idea of a book was born. Itreflects and encapsulates a huge variety of monuments in every style imaginable - pillars, towers,obelisks, mausoleums, cairns and many more curious shapes.Everything frommuch-loved dogs and horses to seemingly obscure members of the aristocracy (thebiggest monuments of all) have been commemorated and sculptors, artists anddesigners have let their imagination run free resulting in a gloriouscollection of places to visit. Someapparent memorials - known as follies - were designed solely to provide a focusfor the eye and we are blessed with a substantial number of theseeccentricities. Groupedinto 20 categories, the book includes writers,royalty and inventors and objects such as mausoleums, follies, the military andpolitical figures and events.Battles (famous and less well-known), mountains,animals (even a pigeon) and the millennium all feature but throughout the book,the monuments and memorials are placed in proper context, which is important inunderstanding their timing and location. There is a section devoted tomishaps at sea and this includes some of the most beautiful and poignantmemorials of all. For a small country we have an astonishing number of veryfine fountains.Some of these were erected to mark Queen Victoria's Golden andDiamond Jubilees, and we find in Victoria a notable supporter of monuments. With the aid of this book readerswill be able to anticipate the joy of discovering a monument and unearthing thereason for its creation.