10 of the best lesser-known monuments in Edinburgh

Edinburgh has no shortage of mighty monuments to celebrate those considered to be the great, the good and the powerful of their time.
By Alison Campsie
Published 10th Nov 2020, 15:54 BST
Bum the Dog, Princes Street Gardens West. This statue was gifted to Edinburgh by San Diego to mark the ties between the two. Bum became the California city's 'town dog' after arriving as a stowaway in the mid-19th Century.Bum the Dog, Princes Street Gardens West. This statue was gifted to Edinburgh by San Diego to mark the ties between the two. Bum became the California city's 'town dog' after arriving as a stowaway in the mid-19th Century.
Bum the Dog, Princes Street Gardens West. This statue was gifted to Edinburgh by San Diego to mark the ties between the two. Bum became the California city's 'town dog' after arriving as a stowaway in the mid-19th Century.

But look again and you’ll find the city holds close a number of statues and memorials that pay tribute to the quieter heroes of the day, as well as those whose colourful lives were woven into the rich tapestry of the capital’s back story.

Author and tour guide John Mackay has written Edinburgh Well Read on the lesser-known statues, fountains and memorials that mark an ever-evolving city and those who made it tick. From a blind pianist to a pirate, a poet, a birth control pioneer and the spot where a mob killed the man in charge of Edinburgh’s law and order, the capital has honoured them all.

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The story of ‘Bum’ the dog is immortalised in Princes Street Garden. He arrived in San Diego, Edinburgh’s twin city, in 1886 as a ship’s stowaway and became the ‘town dog’ after winning the hearts of local people. Bum arrived in exchange for a statue of Greyfriars Bobby in 2008.

The Helen Acquroff Memorial Fountain, The Meadows. A tribute to Helen, who went blind as a child but became a top teacher, pianist, poet and singer as well as a leading light in Scotland's Temperance Movement. She lived and died at 51 South Clerk Stret nearby.The Helen Acquroff Memorial Fountain, The Meadows. A tribute to Helen, who went blind as a child but became a top teacher, pianist, poet and singer as well as a leading light in Scotland's Temperance Movement. She lived and died at 51 South Clerk Stret nearby.
The Helen Acquroff Memorial Fountain, The Meadows. A tribute to Helen, who went blind as a child but became a top teacher, pianist, poet and singer as well as a leading light in Scotland's Temperance Movement. She lived and died at 51 South Clerk Stret nearby.

Blind pianist and Temperance reformer Helen Acquroff is remembered in The Meadows with a drinking fountain while a plaque for birth control pioneer Marie Stopes hangs outside her home at Abercrombie Place. Elsie Inglis, a suffragette who helped to force open education to women at Edinburgh University, is remembered where the old maternity hospital she founded in High Street once stood.

A statue of poet Robert Fergusson, who died aged 24 and whose doctor went on to found the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in his memory, stands in the Canongate. On Corstophine Road, Robert Louis Stevenson’s characters David Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart mark where their journey in Kidnapped came to an end.

Edinburgh’s seedier side is remembered at Morocco’s Land, where pirate Andrew Gray took the Lord Provost’s daughter hostage and cured her sickness. And violence too is also recalled at the Grassmarket, where Captain William Porteous was hanged by an angry mob.

Two cannonballs lodged in the wall of Canonball House on Castlehill are also included, as is Hutton’s Rock at Salisburgy Crags, which pays tribute to James Hutton, the father of modern geology.

To purchase a copy of Edinburgh Well Read, contact John Mackay at [email protected]

Related topics:Edinburgh