Robert Fergusson Scots Poet bronze Statue from the canongate Edinburgh Royal Mile.

. Robert Fergusson Scots Poet bronze Statue from the canongate Edinburgh Royal Mile. Photographed on 26 August 2013. The recorded location is Canongate kirk, Edinburgh Royal Mile, Scotland UK. Edinburgh-born poet Robert Fergusson achieved so much poetical success in his short life of twenty-four years that Robert Burns called him 'my elder brother in the muse'. Robert Fergusson was an eighteenth-century Scots poet whose vivid writing about Edinburgh strongly influenced Robert Burns. The bronze statue outside Canongate Kirk was sculpted by David Annand and unveiled in 2004, showing Fergusson walking through the street environment he wrote about. Burns admired Fergusson so much that he paid for a memorial stone over the poet's grave in Canongate Kirkyard, creating a direct link between two major figures in Scottish literary history. Canongate Kirk was built between 1688 and 1691 after the congregation was displaced from Holyrood Abbey. The distinctive Dutch-gabled church serves the Canongate parish at the lower end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile and has longstanding links with Holyroodhouse and the military. Its interior, monuments, organ and stained glass sit within one of Scotland's most historically dense streetscapes. In the longer view, art in public and historic settings adds another layer to the built environment; Sculpture, mosaic, painting and street art can interpret heritage, provoke debate, memorialise communities or create landmarks, and photographs preserve works that may later change or disappear. From a heritage perspective, signs and notices are ephemeral pieces of design that can become important historical evidence; Lettering, logos, warnings and directions record former businesses, regulations, transport systems and public messages that may disappear long before the surrounding building changes. Additional high-relevance terminology includes public art, mural, artwork, visual culture, cultural identity, place-making, and community art.