Wednesday 26 April 2006. I'm in Edinburgh to do some training at Edinburgh University. There were many such visits to Edinburgh, sometimes to train university staff and sometimes to train staff from local colleges, these latter events being arranged by the local JISC Regional Support Centre.
On this occasion I climbed the hill from the eastern end of Princes Street up to the Parthenon. Not quite with the same weight of time behind it as the one in Athens, or even with the same purpose in mind, it never-the-less is an imposing sight from below. There was, perhaps, a brief thought along the lines of "where's the rest of it?", but hey... The tower on the right is Nelson's Monument. It supports a naval semaphore. A string of these were built within sight of each other originating at the Admiralty in London and in emergencies a message could be sent to the far end of the country by waving the arms of the semaphore. Given how many days it would have taken to travel by ship or overland in those days of wooden fighting ships, the semaphore could be used to gain intelligence of enemy shipping movements. Or a dispatch rider could send, "Expect me on Thursday - have the kettle on..."
In the case of this particular tower, it would be clearly visible by telescope from any Naval shipping moored in the Firth of Forth below me to the north. Together the Paqrthenon and Nelson's Monument make up the National Monument of Scotland, a memorial to the Napoleonic Wars.
A telescopic view from the same spot brings the Firth of Forth a bit closer. The Royal Yacht Britannia is moored there and open to visitors since its retirement as a conveyance for the Queen.
Edinburgh is somewhat hilly. In fact it is bewilderingly laid out with fairly steep roads suddenly crossing deep ravines. One such is Low Calton, over which this archway was built to take the Great London Road across the fifty foot (15m) deep ravine. It was opened during the visit of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, later King Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians and the uncle of Prince Albert, the consort to Queen Victoria.
One of the buildings of the Edinburgh University.
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