Looking west

Somewhere in the National Museum of Scotland, but apparently not under the roof of the Grand Gallery, there is the foundation stone. Laid by Prince Albert in 1861, it was his last public appearance before his death. It was a pretty large foundation stone he laid. One half of it contained a glass jar. Ok that doesn’t make it sound big but look what the jar contained:

    •     a copy of the Edinburgh directory;
    •     Oliver and Boyd’s Almanac;
    •     a glass jar containing the following gold and silver coins: a sovereign, a half sovereign, 5s, 2s, 6d, 2s, 1s, 6d, 4d and 3d., besides a penny, a half penny and a farthing in bronze;
    •     Looking upJohnson’s view of the building and the Post Office;
    •     Johnson’s new plan of the city;
    •     Lectures etc in connection with the Industrial Museum by the late Professor George Wilson;
    •     also a portrait engraving;
    •     Lecture by Professor Archer to the Chamber of Commerce;
    •     Hislop’s Postal Sheet for October 1861;
    •     Hislop’s Time-Gun plan of the city of Edinburgh;
    •     the Edinburgh newspapers of the 23 October 1861.”

Bizarrely though, given the size of the stone and the grandeur of the stone laying ceremony, no one apparently knows exactly where the foundation stone is. Maybe someone will unravel the mystery and enlighten us one of these days.

Looking east

128 thoughts

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  3. What a fascinating story! It’s one of the places I used to explore regularly while living in Edinburgh but never knew about the foundation stone. Thanks for sharing, we learn something new every day, isn’t? Aiva 😊

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    1. Thank you so much for your lovely feedback, and I know it is fascinating about the foundation stone. Apparently there may be an update on its location, I am just waiting to hear from the museum so as soon as I hear I’ll prepare another post 🙂

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  6. nice rooflights and how curious that they cannot find the stone.
    I bet that technology might able to help us in the future e- maybe some infrared tech or something. ??

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    1. Not sure if they are called that when they are lighthouse lamps. It may not look it in this pic but it was seriously big. I can’t recall now which lighthouse it was from.

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  15. Okay, so I mistook the grand gallery for a mall. I have to say our mall designers have done a lot of copying from classic structures. Maybe that is why they aren’t building classic structures anymore — because anyone can copy them and make fake ones more or less overnight. I have no idea what those symbols mean. I could probably look them up, but that would be cheating.

    Moral: Look at the pictures, but also read the text before commenting.

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    1. oh I am so glad you love it as much I do . . . when i go back I must actually look properly at the exhibits. I was too distracted by the building itself on this visit!

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