North Charlotte
Street/St. Colme Street
It is ironic that
the monument is so close to the site of the annual Book Festival
(held in Charlotte Square every August), yet the works of Catherine
Sinclair are largely forgotten in her city.
Born
in Edinburgh in 1800, Catherine was a prolific writer of travel,
biography, children's
books, novels, essays, and reflections. Her most notable work is
'Holiday House'
which, unusually for the time, portrayed a realistic middle class
childhood, complete with mischievous and adventurous children.
The
monument was built in recognition of her many philanthropic work
which included setting up soup kitchens and funding the first
drinking fountain in Edinburgh (fragments of which remain between
Gosford Place and Connaught Place, close to the Water of
Leith). Does it remind you of
anything? A Gothic rocket perhaps? That's because the design of the
monument was based broadly on the Scott Monument
(East Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh EH2 2EJ) to which Catherine
was a major contributor.
Statues
of women are rarer in Edinburgh than hen's teeth. In fact, of the
over
200 statues
in Edinburgh,
only
two are of women
(Queen
Victoria
– at the foot of Leith Walk, and an unnamed South
African woman
- in Festival Square) ...the same number
as there are of dogs
(Greyfriars
Bobby
– Candlemaker Row, and 'Bum'
at the King's Stables Road entrance to Princes Street Gardens).
There is a project called Putting Scotland's Women on the Map
(womenofscotland.org.uk)
which will hopefully redress the balance.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you!