3-003-673 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The National Wallace Monument, about to be built on the Abbey Craig, near Stirling, 1861. 'The monument...consists of a Scottish Baronial Tower, upwards of 200 feet high and 36 feet square, having walls of a thick and massive construction of not less than 15 feet thick at the base, and graduating from 5 to 6 feet at the top...The apex of the monument exhibits the form of an Imperial open crown of stone...which cannot fail to present a most commanding outline and graceful feature when seen against the open sky. The coronal top or crown is upwards of fifty feet high, and consists of eight arms...all converging and abutting in the centre upon an open newel staircase, and forming a series of flying buttresses, broadly ribbed, having the spandrils richly filled in with open tracery. The outer raking flanks of the buttresses are surmounted with massive crocketed pinnacles, the tout ensemble of which imparts a pleasing lightness and impressive monumental effect to the whole design. The site is one of surpassing beauty, and from the monument may be had some of the most magnificent views of a wide and extensive plain of country nowhere surpassed in Scotland, overlooking as it does the scene of numerous and hardfought battlefields'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.