1,229,712 people visit the Edinburgh Castle every year; this is second only in Edinburgh’s attractions to the National Galleries of Scotland. The Edinburgh Castle is also the stage for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo an event that has grown and matured since it began in 1950 into one of the world’s grandest spectacles.
The Castle has seen Roman Legionaries, Anglian Warlords, Saxon Princesses, Pictish Kings, Norman Knights, English Invaders and French, Spanish, Dutch, Irish and American Prisoners of war. However the story of the Edinburgh castle begins millions of years before any of these visitors came to the Castle.
Castle Foundations
The Edinburgh castle dominates the Edinburgh skyline sitting upon the solid foundations of Castle Rock. The Castle rock is the remains of a volcano 340 million years old. In the Ice ages ice sheets peeled away the outer sedimentary layers of the Volcano. What was left after the last Ice Age was the Hard Core of the volcano and the soft rock to the East (the Royal Mile), which was protected in the shadow of castle rock.
The First Humans to occupy the rock came where the Gododdin tribe in 900BC. It was taken from them in AD638 by the Angles who renamed the rock Edinburgh (from Din Eidyn)
FACT: Edinburgh Castle is the first recorded place where the now Scottish Parliament met in 1140.
History of the one o’clock gun
A single shot is fired every day from a 105mm field gun in Edinburgh Castle. The exceptions to this are Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas day at 13.00 hours.
FACT: The one o’clock gun was once fired in anger in 1916 during World War One. A German Zeppelin dropping incendiary bombs on the city was the target.
The full story of the Castle is a tale of a stronghold that constantly changes hands and forms throughout history, often with interesting sub-plots. I have tried to relate some of them here but also provide a list of further readings.
The Buildings of Scotland
J Gifford et al (1984)
Edinburgh Castle
I MacIvor (1993)
Scotland’s Castles
C Tabraham (1996)