Monument in a landscape: the question of ‘meaning‘

Public monuments are of special interest as focal points of meaning in the landscape. Cultural geographers, in attempting to come to terms with questions of meaning, have begun in recent years to think in categories more typical of literary studies than of social science. In this paper the concept of ‘allegory’ is used as a device for illuminating the possible meanings of a monument. The affinities between monumental and allegorical works are discussed. A thirty‐year‐old memorial column in Armidale, NSW, is taken as a case study. The meaning of this structure to present‐day observers is particularly debatable. Several possible readings are proposed, formulated in allegorical terms. It is suggested that such an approach can produce insights that might not otherwise come to the surface.