Balmoral Estate is embarking on a significant rescue mission for a beloved pyramid; not one that is located in Egypt, but one that is 11 meters tall, granite, and comfortably resting in the Scottish Highlands. After decades of unfettered tourist access and foot traffic swarming the hill and trampling the paths around it, soil erosion has made the surrounding earth unstable and has put the health of the pyramid in jeopardy. The estate is correcting the soil erosion and stabilizing the pyramid while asking tourists to bear with them as repairs take place. The aim is uncomplicated: preserve the monument for future generations.
So…what’s really the big deal about a lonely pyramid in the middle of Scotland?
Perhaps it’s not just a rock structure. It is a love letter.
The pyramid was built in 1862, one year after the death of Prince Albert. Queen Victoria was grieving and marked her grief with stone. It has a stone with this monumental imprint:
“In memory of Albert, the great and good Prince Consort, erected by his broken-hearted widow, Victoria, August 21, 1862.”
Of a handful of granite memorials in feudal Austria sprinkled over Balmoral’s 50,000-hectare estate, this one is the largest, most heartfelt, and most visited.
Love, royalty, and a lot of granite
Victoria and Albert married in 1840 and were together until he died in 1861. After he died, monuments sprung up across the estate—more than ten of them. Some were to celebrate the marriage of their children, some were built to commemorate the purchase of the property, but the iconic pyramid to Albert was the one that always stood out.
So, it’s not surprising that every year thousands of visitors hike up to see it. Balmoral Castle approximately welcomes 70,000 visitors each year, and most visitors want to take a photo with the famous pyramid. Good for tourism, bad for the ground beneath it.
Tourists v soil
With so many visitors, the ground around the pyramid started to wear away. Over each season, the slope thinned. Trails started to widen. Soil began to loosen. If nothing was done, this going to eventually create a composite condition on the monument.
So the estate engaged in work that was not remotely as glamorous:
- reinforce the soil of the ground
- remediated the surrounding landscape
- reinforced the pyramid so it does not shift or respond to the soil moving underneath it
- warned visitors to please be careful while visiting
Not glamorous work—but history survives, because somebody does the work.
A twist most people weren’t expecting
In September, another little bomb dropped: the bust of Prince Albert that had hung in Windsor Castle for 160 years hadn’t been made by a famous sculptor—it had been made by their daughter, Princess Victoria. She carved it with the help of her teacher, Hugo Hagen. That had been buried in the Royal Collection for over a hundred years and was only revealed by a new catalog.
But it wasn’t just that the royal family attempted to memorialize Albert in stone; his own child did too which is a nice touch.
The reason people keep caring
The pyramid isn’t just a tourist attraction. It’s a declaration of devotion, built by a queen who lost the one she loved most. And that’s why the local people get worried when the ground starts to collapse. That’s why the restoration matters.
Because long after the visitors come and go, the stone still is telling the same story:
A queen. A prince. A love strong enough to withstand all that is thrown at it, all the way to the top of the mountain.
