In Issue 203, published today, you can read about the Broughton-based architect Robert Burn whose design for the Nelson Monument is still to be found on Calton Hill.
Burn's plan beat that of another Broughton resident, Alexander Nasmyth, whom we profiled in Issue 181. That design appears on this page.
Nasmyth's son, James, later wrote a very partial account of his father's career in which he challenged the financial grounds for preferring Burn, and disparaging the inverted telescope on aesthetic grounds.
The whole of James Nasmyth's imaginatively titled James Nasmyth is available online, but here is a short extract:
Shortly after the death of Lord Nelson it was proposed to erect a monument to his memory on the Calton Hill. My father supplied a design, which was laid before the Monument Committee. It was so much approved that the required sum was rapidly subscribed. But as the estimated cost of this erection was found slightly to exceed the amount subscribed, a nominally cheaper design was privately adopted. It was literally a job. The vulgar, churn-like monument was thus thrust on the public and actually erected; and there it stands to this day, a piteous sight to beholders. It was eventually found greatly to exceed in cost the amount of the estimate for my father's design. I give a sketch of my father's memorial and I am led to do this because it is erroneously alleged that he was the architect of the present inverted spyglass called 'Nelson's Monument.'
In Spurtle's opinion, Burn's design may not be the best thing since sliced bread, but is certainly far from piteous and not particularly churn-like. It is certainly preferable to Alexander Nasmyth's tedious tower.
Spurtle profiled James Nasmyth in Issue 183.
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