The Duke of Wellington

In the heart of Royal Exchange Square sits Glasgow’s pride and joy – the equestrian Duke of Wellington statue. Designed by Italian artist Carlo Marochetti in 1844, the statue today probably doesn’t look quite the way he would have envisaged – thanks to the permanent presence of an orange traffic cone atop the Duke’s head. The cone first began appearing in the early 1980s, widely attributed to the escapades of drunken students. Despite the attempts of the council and police, each time the cone was removed, a new one promptly appeared. The authorities planned to double the size of the statue’s three-foot-high plinth in 2013 to discourage people from scaling the Category-A listed monument, but public outcry put paid to the plan, and the cone has remained in place ever since – becoming something of an attraction in its own right.