Cone Culture: The Long Tradition of Laughing at Our Own Statues
AI illustration for the4pegs.com, in our So Scottish palette.
This week I passed a statue wearing three traffic cones. Not just the rider — the horse got one too, and so did a single hoof, which I think is the detail that shows real commitment. Freshers' week does strange things to people. A few days earlier I'd caught Sherlock Holmes over on Picardy Place wearing a rainbow boa for Pride, looking entirely unbothered by the whole thing.
And it got me thinking about the odd, tender relationship Scotland has with its statues. Nobody loves a statue like the Scots — and nobody defaces one with more affection. We put our heroes on plinths and then, almost immediately, we start the joke. It's not disrespect. It's the opposite: it's a city deciding a monument belongs to the people who live around it, not to the history books.
It happened again this freshers' week — cones going up faster than the council could take them down, and one horse earning a whole wardrobe of them.
Three cones and a hoof. The freshers are getting better at this every year. Photo: Sharon McMenemy Khan.
The Cone That Beat the Council
The gold standard is Glasgow's Duke of Wellington outside the Gallery of Modern Art, who has worn a traffic cone on his head since at least the 1980s.
For decades the council quietly removed the cone every time it reappeared — at a cost of around £10,000 a year. In 2013 they'd had enough and proposed raising the plinth by a metre to stop the climbers for good, a repair project priced at £65,000. An online petition to save the cone gathered more than 10,000 signatures, the plan was dropped, and the cone stayed. These days it's less vandalism and more municipal logo: the Duke wears his hat in tourist guides, on merchandise and, I'd wager, in a good percentage of every hen do's photos.
And if all of this feels strangely familiar, it should. Put a cone on a bronze head and you've turned a war hero into a Conehead — the cone-headed family from planet Remulak who landed on Saturday Night Live in 1977 and never really left. Dan Aykroyd's Beldar would approve of the headwear, if not the climbing technique. The full history is on the BBC.
Edinburgh's Highest Cone
Edinburgh plays the game too, and with more ambition. The Melville Monument in St Andrew Square is 45 metres of solid column, and in recent years students have somehow crowned it — the city's highest-altitude coning.
But the freshers don't need a 45-metre column. Any statue will do, as this week's three-cone effort proved. There's something lovely about it: a brand-new student, three days into a city they don't yet know, giving a Victorian gentleman a hat. That's not seeing the city. That's joining it.
A Philosopher's Lucky Toe
Down on the Royal Mile, the tradition is gentler and older-feeling: David Hume, bronze and brooding on his bench, has had his right big toe rubbed to a golden shine by generations of students hoping for luck in their exams.
There's a delicious irony in it. Hume was the great sceptic of the age, the man who took apart every cosy assumption about knowledge and miracle and habit. And now he sits there as a folk talisman — students touching bronze for luck, the least rational ritual imaginable, performed on the most rational man who ever lived in this city. I suspect he'd have written a very good essay about it.
The Nose We're Asked Not to Rub
Not every touch is welcome. Poor Greyfriars Bobby's nose has been rubbed so raw by visitors that the protective coating is wearing off the bronze — and locals want it stopped.
The nose-rubbing isn't even a tradition, exactly; it's a recent tourist habit that grew out of nothing. Edinburgh's response has been polite but firm: admire the wee dog, and leave his nose alone. A good rule of thumb for statues in general, really — cones are the city's joke to make, and noses belong to the dogs.
The Boa and the Detective
And then there's Picardy Place, where Sherlock Holmes stands a few steps from the birthplace of his creator — Arthur Conan Doyle was born at No. 11 in 1859.
During Pride this year, someone gave the great detective a rainbow boa, and he wore it the way Sherlock would wear anything: with absolute conviction. Of all the statue rituals in this city, that might be my favourite, because nobody was asked to do it and nobody was paid. Somebody just thought the statue should be joining in.
Sherlock Holmes at Picardy Place, rocking his rainbow Pride boa. Photo: Sharon McMenemy Khan.
A Quick Guide to Scotland's Statues and Their Rituals
If you're visiting and want to see the greatest hits:
Glasgow, Royal Exchange Square: the Duke of Wellington and his cone. You know it's coming back even if you see him bare-headed.
Edinburgh, St Andrew Square: the Melville Monument — the city's highest cone, 45 metres up. Look up.
Edinburgh, Royal Mile: David Hume's toe. Rub it for exam luck, like generations of students before you.
Edinburgh, Greyfriars: Bobby's nose. Look, don't rub — the bronze needs a rest.
Edinburgh, Picardy Place: Sherlock Holmes. Check what he's wearing; it changes with the seasons.
Statues in other cities are scenery. Here, they're a running conversation between a city and its own history — plinths holding still while the joke changes around them. Wellington got a cone, Hume got a shine, Bobby got a sorry nose, and Sherlock gets a wardrobe. Whatever else changes, somebody will always find one more traffic cone. Remulak would be proud.
Comments