Edinburgh Castle

A Gun That Fires Every Day at One

Since 7 June 1861, a 105mm field gun has fired from the walls of Edinburgh Castle every weekday at precisely 1pm. The tradition began not as a military display but as a practical timekeeping signal for ships in the Firth of Forth, which needed to calibrate their marine chronometers for accurate navigation. The gun replaced an older system involving a time ball on the roof of the adjacent Nelson Monument on Calton Hill. The ball would drop at 1pm; sailors watched and set their clocks. The gun carried the sound further on foggy days. It still fires, Monday through Saturday, except Sundays, Christmas Day and Good Friday. If you happen to be under it when it goes off, it is considerably louder than you expect.

That is a good way into Edinburgh Castle: not through the grand narrative of siege and royalty, but through a small, specific, still-functioning piece of the place. The castle is 900 years old and contains enough layers of Scottish history to fill a semester of lectures. The trick to visiting it well is picking what you actually want to see and moving with purpose, because the crowds build fast and the site is large.

What to See

The Crown Room is the centrepiece of most visits, housing the Honours of Scotland: the Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State, the oldest crown jewels in Britain. The Crown was refashioned in 1540 from gold mined in Scotland for King James V, set with 22 gemstones including amethysts, garnets and freshwater pearls. It was used at the coronation of Mary Queen of Scots’ son James VI in 1567. The room is often crowded because it also displayed the Stone of Destiny, the ancient coronation stone used for centuries in the inauguration of Scottish monarchs.

One important update for anyone who has visited before: the Stone of Destiny was moved from Edinburgh Castle to Perth Museum in March 2024, where it is now permanently displayed. Edinburgh Castle still tells the Stone’s story through interpretive panels, but you will need to travel to Perth if you want to see the actual object. The stone’s history is genuinely extraordinary: seized by King Edward I of England in 1296, held at Westminster Abbey for 700 years, briefly recovered by four Scottish students who smuggled it out on Christmas Day 1950 before it was returned to London, and finally brought back to Scotland officially in 1996. The Perth Museum has invested seriously in its display.

The Great Hall, on the upper section of the castle, dates from the reign of James IV in the late 15th century. Its original timber roof, restored in the 19th century, retains its hammerbeam construction and the coats of arms of Scotland’s noble families. The hall served as a barracks, a stable and a hospital before being restored; the original use was formal state occasions.

The small room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI in 1566 is in the Palace block. It is surprisingly small for a royal birthing chamber, measuring about the size of a large bathroom. The room’s scale is one of those details that stops people short in a way no amount of descriptive text manages.

Practical Information

Adult tickets cost £15.50. Concessions for over-65s are £12.40, and children aged 5 to 15 are £9.30. Under-fives are free. Young Scot cardholders get in for £1. British Armed Forces personnel enter free. Book online in advance; there is a visitor cap and tickets can sell out in peak season.

The castle opens at 9:30am from April through September with last entry at 5pm and closing at 6pm. Winter hours are 9:30am to 5pm with last entry at 4pm. Guided tours cost an additional £6.50 per person and need to be booked in advance. An audio guide is available in multiple languages.

The walk up the Royal Mile from the Old Town to the castle gatehouse takes about ten minutes from Waverley Station and involves a steady incline. The esplanade at the top, a large cobbled forecourt where the Edinburgh Military Tattoo is held each August, is free to access even without a castle ticket.

When to Go

The castle’s busiest period is July through August, when the Edinburgh Festival runs in the city and the Military Tattoo packs the esplanade nightly. Arriving at opening time on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday gives you the quietest early-morning experience. October to March is noticeably less crowded, and on a clear winter day the views from the battlements over the New Town and the Firth of Forth beyond are better than anything you will see on a grey August afternoon.

The Wider Area

The Royal Mile, which connects the castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the other end, is a tourist corridor and worth walking primarily to access the closes and wynds running off either side. These narrow lanes into the old medieval tenements give a more accurate sense of how the city worked before the New Town was built in the 18th century. The White Horse Close near Canongate and Brodie’s Close near the castle end are good examples that are easy to miss from the main street.

The National Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street, a ten-minute walk from the castle, is free entry and covers Scottish history from pre-history to the present. It is worth three hours and most visitors give it one. If you are prioritising indoor time in bad weather, start there and save the castle for a clearer afternoon.

Entry to Edinburgh Castle is not cheap for a family. If your time is genuinely limited and you would rather spend it walking the city, the castle’s exterior and the esplanade are free. You can see a great deal of the site from outside the walls, and the One O’Clock Gun, if you position yourself on the esplanade at the right time, requires no ticket at all.