Whyte-Melville Memorial Fountain - St.Andrews, Fife. - Fountains on Waymarking.com

George John Whyte-Melville was a novelist and soldier born in 1821. HIs early life was spent at Mount Melville near the ancient Fife town of St.Andrews, although he resided in England for the most part of his life. He was killed in a riding accident in 1878 and his mother Lady Catherine Melville decided on a fountain to be erected in his memory in St.Andrews.

The fountain was erected by public subscription in 1880, and situated close to the centre of town in Market Street. It is a three tier cascading fountain, 14 feet high with two tiered quatrefoil basins. It is built of red Dumfriesshire ashlar and Dalbeattie granite from the Corncockle quarries on the estate of Sir Alexander Jardine near Lockerbie.

The fountain fell into disuse in the 1930s due to corrosion of internal pipes, and was used as a flower bed until a campaign by the St.Andrews Merchants' Association led to the reconnection on July 8th 2015.

The fountain contains four marble plaques, a bust, the family coat of arms, the arms of the Coldstream Guards, and the following inscription:

'THIS FOUNTAIN IS ERECTED BY MANY FRIENDS, RICH AND POOR, TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF GEORGE JOHN WHYTE MELVILLE OF MOUNT MELVILLE, BENNOCHY AND STRATHKINNESS, BORN 19TH JULY 1821, DIED 5th DEC. 1878, FROM AN ACCIDENT IN THE HUNTING-FIELD NEAR TETBURY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. HIS WRITINGS DELIGHTED, HIS CONVERSATION CHARMED AND INSTRUCTED, HIS LIFE WAS AN EXAMPLE TO ALL WHO ENJOYED HIS FRIENDSHIP, AND WHO NOW MOURN HIS UNTIMELY END.'