What Is the Cannon on Calton Hill? (Edinburgh's "Watchman," Explained)

There's a cannon on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, aimed across the city toward the Balmoral clock tower. If you've stood on the hill and wondered what it is or why it's pointed at the skyline, here's the short answer: it's a Portuguese cannon, cast in the early 1400s, captured by the British in Burma in 1885, and presented to the city of Edinburgh the following year. It's been sitting on Calton Hill since 1887 — 139 years, aimed at a city, and it has never once been fired.

It sits near the Nelson Monument and the National Monument, on the same stretch of hill most people climb for the skyline view over the city and out toward the Forth. Most visitors walk straight past it on their way to the view.

None of that was on my mind when I raised the camera. I saw the shape of it against the skyline at dusk — the cannon in the foreground, the clock tower behind it. I took the shot for the composition, not the story. That came later, back on my iPad, when I went looking for what I'd actually photographed.

That's usually how it goes with me. I'll research photo spots before I go somewhere, but once I'm actually walking the city, the plan doesn't hold much weight. If something stops me, I stop — planned or not. The story behind a shot is a bonus, not the reason I raised the camera. But once I knew what I was looking at here, it changed how I saw the photo. A weapon that's spent nearly a century and a half doing nothing but standing watch. Never fired. Just there, aimed at a city that stopped needing to worry about it a long time ago.

The Watchman is available now as a fine art photography print — metal, canvas, or paper. sdphotographyllc.com.