£1.8m to be spent on crumbling monument

The National Trust is to spend £1.8million to partially repair a crumbling monument.

The 175ft Wellington Monument in Somerset was built in 1817 as a tribute to the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. It has been fenced off for 13 years due to falling stone debris.

The charity says it will cost £3.8million to repair the entire obelisk but it is struggling to raise the full amount. A trust spokesman said: “The problem is we have a massive backlog for competing demands... we are trying to spend £100million a year for the next 10 years to tackle the conservation backlog.”