A letter to the Lord Provost on the best ways of spoiling the beauty of Edinburgh / by Lord Cockburn.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Lord Provost on the best ways of spoiling the beauty of Edinburgh / by Lord Cockburn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    24/30 (page 24)
    Screen is settled. And I refer to it merely because it affords an example of the perfect ease with which it can be proposed to sacrifice the greatest ornament to the slightest comparative convenience. Architecturally, that screen is the building.— It is handsome in itself, and absolutely essential for the edifice. Its architect placed it there as the principal feature of his work ; and it is the most conspicuous ornamental object in the town. When Waterloo Place was made, a few years ago, it was either brought forward so as to narrow, or not kept back so as to widen, the head of Leith Street. To correct the error, an outcry was lately raised in favour of mangling the innocent screen. Some wanted it narrowed; some wrould have liked one angle of it cut off; and many would have shouted if they could have seen it all taken away. Public meetings were actually held in furtherance of these views. The better feel- ing w^as decidedly against them. Was there any meeting in defence of the screen ? Not one. But, though abandoned by ourselves, the Treasury (as I understand) did itself hon- our by resisting such sacrifices, for such a purpose. But an arrangement was necessary, or at least was made so, for placing Steel’s noble Statue of the Duke of Wellington in front of the building; and, in order to accommodate a piece of sculpture which will adorn not Edinburgh alone, but Scot- land, a concession has been made, which involves a slight re- cession of the screen. That this, though very dangerous, will, on the whole, be an improvement, I cannot doubt, because it is sanctioned by those on whom I rely. But the important part of the matter is, the extent of what was demanded, and its ob- ject. It was not a retirement of six or seven feet, for a statue of a high order, that was wanted; but the virtual dost rue- tion of the screen,—and this for the widening of a wilfully