Marquess of Bute donation helps restore monuments

The Marquess of Bute has made a donation of £10,000 towards the restoration of the National, Nelson and Burns monuments on Calton Hill. The work is part of the on-going Twelve Monuments Restoration Project, jointly managed by Edinburgh World Heritage and the City of Edinburgh Council.

EWH and its partners at the City of Edinburgh Council are tremendously grateful for this a huge boost towards the fundraising efforts.

In fact all the Calton Hill monuments were originally all paid for by public subscription, and often it was a gift from the leading cultural lights of the day that acted as a catalyst for the fundraising.

The donation will help fund repair works to the Calton Hill monuments, which are some of the most significant landmarks in the city. In December 2008 one of the enormous stone lintols on the National Monument was re-positioned with the help of a crane.

Work at the Burns Monument began last month, with a scaffold erected to enable a close inspection by conservation experts. The Nelson Monument restoration, which will include repairing its Time-Ball mechanism to working order, is expected to start in the coming weeks.

The Bute family have long history of helping to preserve Edinburgh’s historic buildings. The 4th Marquess of Bute (1881 – 1947) was an early pioneer of heritage conservation, buying the seventeenth century Acheson House in the Old Town, and the grand New Town properties of 5, 6 and 7 Charlotte Square. Lord Bute was a great admirer of the architect Robert Adam, and from 1903 to 1925 he set about restoring the north side of the square back to his original designs.