It was the Highland Society of Scotland's idea to construct a memorial to Scottish Napoleonic War soldiers, specifically on Calton Hill overlooking Edinburgh. Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, who had controversially brought Parthenon sculptures to the British Museum, ensured that the memorial should look like the classical Parthenon in Athens.

It was designed by Charles Robert Cockerell and William Henry Playfair, the former of whom had extensively studied in Greece and the latter of whom constructed many other Neoclassical buildings in Edinburgh. The completed plans would not have looked that out of place in modern Washington, D.C.'s National Mall. Even more ambitiously, however, catacombs were to be constructed underneath as a burial place for national heroes, termed a "Scottish Valhalla."

To promote and raise funds for the project, the National Monument of Scotland's foundation stone was prematurely laid with great pomp and circumstance in 1822. This coincided with a visit of King George IV to Scotland, although he did not end up attending. Despite raising only £16,000 of the necessary £42,000 budget, construction began in 1826 only to grind to a halt by 1829.

Although various attempts were made over the years to complete it, the Monument remains unfinished and has been mockingly nicknamed "Scotland's Folly" and "the Pride and Poverty of Scotland." Rather than looking like a grand memorial out of the National Mall, it looks like the forgotten albeit a little too clean ruins of an ancient Greek temple.

More recently, proposals have centered around repurposing the National Monument to commemorate a different cause. As recently as 2004, architect Malcolm Fraser controversially proposed placing Tibetan flagpoles in stead of the missing columns, flying "hopes and prayers" from schoolchildren in honour of the restored Scottish Parliament. However, many Edinburghers have come to accept the Monument as an indelible part of their city's heritage and a distinctive landmark on par with the Washington Monument or Lincoln Memorial. Its neoclassical design contributes to Edinburgh's reputation as the "Athens of the North," and it is part of the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh UNESCO World Heritage Site.