A large equestrian statue which forms a landmark in front of the Gallery of Modern Art, the Duke of Wellington's Statue lies at the junction of Queen Street with Ingram Street in the centre of Glasgow. It was sculpted in bronze by Italian-born artist Carlo Marochetti (1805-67), erected in 1844 and is now A-listed. As a statue it is interesting, but the feature that makes this a popular tourist attraction is the inevitable traffic-cone placed on the Duke's head by drunken Glaswegians. The practice was consistently discouraged by Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council, who thought it projected a 'depressing image' of the city and removed a cone from the statue, on average, one hundred times per year at an alleged cost of £10,000. The city authorities seemed finally to accept the presence of the traffic cone following a successful online campaign to prevent the raising of the plinth and stop the cone being replaced. This new-found official acceptance seemed to be confirmed by the inclusion of the iconic (or perhaps i-cone-ic) statue within the Opening Ceremony of the XXth Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow in 2014.
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