In 1850 "The Times" was more complimentary: "The position and architecture of this structure are both extremely fine, and viewed from the railway it produces the best effect." At the Great Exhibition, which took place in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London in 1851, a model of the monument made of cannel coal was exhibited as part of the event's Mining and Metallurgy section. In 1857 William Fordyce wrote: "The temple is remarkable for its grandeur, simplicity and imposing effect, nothing in the shape of ornament or meretricious decoration being introduced". In his graphic novel "Alice in Sunderland", which explores Lewis Carroll's connections to Sunderland, Bryan Talbot suggests that Carroll may have been inspired by the monument, comparing the door leading to the monument's stairs to a scene omitted from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865), in which Alice knocks on a door in a tree. In his 1887 story "The Flower of Weardale", author William Delisle Hay described the monument: