Mungo Park

About Mungo Park

As you explore the monument take care to avoid the traffic at this busy corner.

The Mungo Park monument commemorates the Scottish explorer who charted the Niger River in the late 18th century. Park was born in 1771 in the Yarrow valley a few miles away. There is also a site marker on the wall of the house on your right; it was there that he was apprenticed to Dr. Anderson, courting and marrying his daughter.

In 1795 he sailed to the Gambia to lead a team exploring for the course of the Niger. In 1797 he returned to Scotland having managed to follow the course of the Niger River for almost 400 miles. Although he returned to practice medicine in the Borders at Peebles, he returned to Africa to lead his final ill-fated exploration in 1805, where he and his company were ambushed near Boussa in what is now Nigeria.