The Character Statues

Caleb Balderstone

Found on the north facade of the Scott Monument.

Caleb Balderstone (from the novel 'The Bride of Lammermoor', 1819) is shown slightly stooped and holding an unusual container in his hand. His dress is rather simple, with plain coat tight trews and knee-length stockings.

The sole remaining male servant at the ruinous castle of Wolf's Crag, Caleb Balderstone is faithful as a dog to Edgar, the Master of Ravenswood, whose ancestral home it is. An old man, with "thin grey hairs, bald forehead, and sharp high features", Caleb has developed the ability to offer hospitality verbally while withholding it in practice into a fine art. By this means he maintains his master's family pride but protects his impoverished purse. When a guest asks for ale, he replies, "I wadna just presume to recommend our ale; the maut was ill made, and there was awfu' thunner last week; but siccan water as the Tower well has ye'll seldom see…"

Apart from this absurd role, Caleb is weighed down with a sense of doom for his master: "There are auld prophecies about this house I wad ill like to see fulfilled wi' my auld een, that has seen evil eneugh already."

After Ravenswood's death, Caleb's own life loses its "salt and savour", and he pines away within a year.

About the Sculptor

William Grant Stevenson (1849 to 1919)

Born in Ratho, Midlothian, William Grant Stevenson was the younger brother of David Watson Stevenson. He was educated in the parish school and later trained at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy life class, where he gained one gold and two silver national medals.

His most important works are statues of Robert Burns in Kilmarnock, Denver and Chicago, and Sir William Wallace in Duthie Park, Aberdeen (1883).

His statues on the Scott Monument are of Caleb Balderstone, The Abbess and Peter Peebles.

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