Before its completion, the "Carlisle Journal" said Penshaw Monument would be "one of England's proudest architectural wonders, and a fitting memorial of one of its wisest statesmen". However, its design initially met with a hostile response in architectural circles: in 1844 "The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal" called it "as arrant a piece of 'nonsense architecture' as can well be imagined" and derisively compared it to a cattle pound. "The Art Union" was similarly scathing: it was critical of the idea of a Greek temple, which it said "does not bespeak much of either invention or judgement". It concluded: "To us it appears to be one of the most absurd, ill-imagined, and ill-contrived things ever devised, utterly devoid of significancy, purpose, or meaning."