In Oban, Scotland, there stands an abandoned colosseum-like structure. It's called McCaigs Folly.
In the last years of the 19th century John Stuart McCaig decided to erect a monument on a hill overlooking Oban. Whilst a pillar of the local community, McCaig did not choose a column or obelisk, but instead a colossal circular wall, pierced with gothic windows, giving magnificent views of the harbour and out to sea.
In 1895 McCaig (1823-1902) applied for permission to erect a ‘stone and lime wall and granite tower with freestone dressing’ on a piece of land he owned called Battery Hill. A year later McCaig sold his interest in Oban pier and harbour for £16,500, so he had money to spend, and he made further applications in 1896 and 1897 to add to the wall and increase it in height.
McCaig intended his hilltop project to provide work for local men, so the great wall was built sporadically with work stopping whenever there was employment elsewhere. But by September 1897 a visitor could note that ‘there is rising by degrees a mighty structure’. The tourist was informed that ‘a lofty tower’ would in due course ‘rise from the centre of the gigantic circle’, and whilst that was never built, history has confirmed his opinion that ‘when this is finished Oban will possess a building absolutely unique in the United Kingdom’.
McCaig died suddenly in the summer of 1902 before the planned central tower could be built. However his will stipulated that his estate should fund the erection of 12 statues within ‘Stuart McCaig’s Tower’ representing himself, his parents and his siblings. Scottish sculptors, especially ‘young and rising artists’, were to be commissioned to design the statues: they were to work from photographs of McCaig’s late family, and if images were not available the artists were to ensure the statues had a family likeness. Prizes were to be offered for the best design, with a competition also to design ‘artistic towers’ to stand in prominent positions on McCaig’s estates.
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https://thefollyflaneuse.com/mccaigs-folly-oban-argyll/
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