A HISTORIC Scots monument is due to enter its final phase of restoration with works expected to start next week.
The Nelson Monument on Calton Hill in central Edinburgh is extremely popular with tourists, having been erected between 1807 and 1816.
It was originally built as a monument to admiral Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson to celebrate his victory over the French and Spanish armadas at the Battle of Trafalgar.
The monument has been closed since 2020 with a brief reopening period in the summer, with works on restoring the monument beginning in September 2024.
The monument is expected to reopen in July of this year after the final phase of the restoration project is completed.
Scaffolding will be erected around the 32-metre-tall tower before timber repairs are carried out and the refurbished time ball will be reinstalled.
The time ball was taken out and refurbished in September of last year as part of an earlier phase of the revitalisation project.
The refurbishment will also repair minor parts of the building such as windows and ensure the monument is structurally sound.
Scaffolding is expected to be removed from around the monument in mid-May with the time ball reinstalled about a month earlier in April.
The reopening of the near 200-year-old monument will be celebrated with a special event and the public will be allowed to enter.
A time ball is a time signalling device which drops at 1pm and enables navigators on ships to keep their chronometers correct.
They are no longer used on ships or in general with more up to date technology having been invented to replace them.
