Colton Hill

Brief information

At the top of Calton Hill stands a monument conceived as Scotland’s Parthenon, but left unfinished. This incompleteness neatly explains the character of the hill: what matters here is not only the views of Edinburgh, but also the individual structures through which the city’s ambitions, memory of wars, science, punishment, and state power can be read.

The hill is located at the eastern end of Princes Street. On its summit and slopes are the National Monument of Scotland, the Nelson Monument, the City Observatory, Old Calton Burial Ground, and buildings from different periods. The southern slope is especially revealing: today’s St Andrew’s House stands on the site of the former Calton Jail, of which the Governor’s House and the lower part of the outer wall have survived.

What to notice first

On Calton Hill, it makes sense to compare not the scale of the structures, but how each of them reveals the site’s former function. The National Monument looks like an ancient temple because it was conceived as a “new Parthenon” in memory of those who died in the Napoleonic Wars; the halted construction turned the idea into visible incompletion. The Nelson Monument, by contrast, works like an instrument: the tower is shaped like an inverted telescope, and the time ball added to it connected the monument with the city’s precise timekeeping.

On the southwestern slope, Old Calton Burial Ground shows a more restrained language of remembrance: David Hume’s mausoleum is marked only with his name and dates, while nearby stands an obelisk to victims of political repression. At St Andrew’s House, the current administrative function can be compared with the remains of the prison: the Governor’s House, with its tower and crenellated walls, and the lower part of the outer wall recall that the southern slope was once a closed prison complex.