A fortress on a volcanic plug that has been besieged more often than anywhere else in Britain, holding the oldest crown jewels in the islands.
The rock is the plug of a volcano that stopped erupting about 340 million years ago, and a glacier later scraped away everything softer around it, leaving a crag with a long tail of debris running east. The castle sits on the crag and the Royal Mile runs down the tail. Edinburgh’s whole shape follows from this.
There has been a fortress here since at least the seventh century, and the site has been fought over more times than anywhere else in Britain — 26 sieges by the usual count. It stopped being a royal residence after 1603, when James VI went south to become James I of England, and spent much of the following centuries as a garrison and a prison.
What to see
St Margaret’s Chapel is the oldest building in Edinburgh, built around 1130 by David I for his mother. It is tiny — it holds about twenty people — and it survived because Robert the Bruce ordered the castle slighted in 1314 but spared the chapel.
The Honours of Scotland — crown, sceptre and sword of state — are the oldest crown jewels in Britain, used to crown Mary Queen of Scots and Charles II. They were walled up after the Union of 1707 and forgotten for over a century until Walter Scott, who was very good at this sort of thing, got permission to break open the chest in 1818 and found them still there.
Beside them sits the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings were enthroned, taken to Westminster by Edward I in 1296 and returned in 1996. It went to London again for the 2023 coronation and came back. It now spends part of its time at the new Perth Museum, so check where it is before making a special trip for it.
The Great Hall has a hammerbeam roof of 1511. The Royal Palace contains the small room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to the future James VI in 1566. The prisons of war vaults, holding graffiti carved by French, American and Spanish prisoners, are the most human part of the castle.
The Scottish National War Memorial of 1927 is the quietest and most affecting building on the rock.
The One O’Clock Gun
Fired at exactly one every day except Sunday, Good Friday and Christmas, since 1861, so that ships in the Forth could set their chronometers. Everyone in the Old Town jumps anyway.
Practicalities
Book online for a timed entry. Allow two to three hours. The approach is steep and the ground inside is cobbled and uneven; there is a mobility vehicle from the gate for those who need it.
The Esplanade in front is free to walk onto and holds the Military Tattoo in August, when the stands go up for six weeks and block the view.
More Landmarks
Palace of Holyroodhouse
The King's residence in Scotland, an abbey ruin behind it, and the room where Rizzio was stabbed fifty-six times.
The Scottish Parliament
A building that came in ten times over budget, three years late, won the Stirling Prize, and is free to walk into.
St Giles' Cathedral
The High Kirk of Edinburgh, where Knox preached the Reformation and a woman allegedly threw a stool at a bishop.