Waterloo Monument

Sitting up on the summit of Penielheugh is a 45m (150 foot) Doric column called the Waterloo Monument.

It was erected to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and so is sometimes referred to as the Wellington Monument. However it wasn't initially created to celebrate the final and decisive battle nor was it the monument that was originally requested.

William Kerr (the 6th Marquess of Lothian) had instructed the architect William Burn to create something to honour the Duke's victorious campaigns against the French. A pyramid was built in 1815, but it collapsed 'with a tremendous crash' only one year after its construction.

Rather than asking Burn to have another bash, Kerr commissioned a rival architect called Archibald Elliot and he created the monument you see today in the form of a 'Triumphal Column' in 1817. Local stone was quarried and it took nearly seven years to build.

This time the tower was built in honour of Wellington's triumph at Waterloo.

Although you can get a key from the Lothian Offices to head up the spiral staircase to the top, it was closed when we visited. But we still enjoyed the views from the top by sending up Red5 Drone.

Finally a complication from Red5 Drone.