45m tall Melville Monument hit by city’s highest altitude “coning” yet

EDINBURGH’S “cones” craze has taken another twist, after someone planted a traffic cone (nearly) at the top of one of the capital’s most imposing monuments.

The culprit is thought to have “broke in the door illegally” at the base of the 45m tall Melville Monument over the weekend, and climbed up to the platform where the large statue of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, stands.

Although the vandal did not quite manage to hoist the cone onto Dundas’s head, Edinburgh residents were “impressed” by their dedication to the “coning” craze, which has been criticised for damaging some of the city’s historic monuments.

Essential Edinburgh, who manage St Andrew Square, where the monument sits, were less impressed.

When approached, Roddy Smith, Chief Executive of Essential Edinburgh said: “It’s disappointing.

“Someone broke in the door illegally and placed a cone on the monument after climbing up, there’s not much more to say really.”

He added, however: “It was an extremely foolhardy and reckless stunt.”

The cone first appeared atop the column on Monday.

This month, traffic cones began appearing on top of a variety of statues in Edinburgh, following a trend which originated in Glasgow but accelerated in the capital after going global with the Tartan Army during the World Cup.

Statues of Adam Smith, Alexander the Great, and Sherlock Holmes, as well as fire service founder, James Braidwood, have all been “coned”.

At one point, the Duke of Wellington statue, outside Register House on the east end of Princes Street, sported three cones: one on the Duke’s head, one on the head of his horse, Copenhagen, and one across its knee.

The craze was blamed for some damage and degradation to historic monuments around the city, with the sandstone plinth for the Sherlock Holmes Statue in the city centre showing signs of wear from climbing.

In Glasgow, since the 1980s, a traffic cone has been balanced on the head of the city’s own Duke of Wellington statue.

Whenever the city council removes the cone, it is persistently replaced by late-night revellers and pranksters.

It even spread overseas with Scotland fans decorating statues in Miami and Boston in a similar fashion.

While many have urged locals to leave the “coning” to Glasgow, describing the joke as tired, some were begrudgingly impressed by the ambition of this particular “coner”.

Posting to a forum dedicated to local news, one said: “I know the conings are no longer cool but some effort from someone to get it up there. Shame they didn’t get it on the head.”

Another added: “I’m impressed honestly.”

While one theorised that the vandal may have climbed the lightning conductor’s down wire, which travels down the length of the monument, it appears the vandal simply took the stairs after breaking through the front door.

The monument was completed in 1827 and was constructed in honour of Scottish statesman Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, a towering but divisive figure in British politics during the late 18th century.

In the wake of protests following the murder of George Floyd in the US and renewed attention for statues of slavers, a plaque was affixed to the monument accusing Dundas of using his position as Home Secretary and Secretary of State for War to defer the “abolition of the Atlantic slave trade”.

The column, more than 40m tall, is modelled after Trajan’s Column in Rome, and is topped by a 4.2m tall statue of Dundas himself. The monument’s total height is around 45m.