Edinburgh

Arthur’s Seat

The 251-metre summit of an old volcano in Holyrood Park, a real hill walk in the middle of Edinburgh.

Welcome

From almost anywhere in Edinburgh you can see Arthur's Seat, a craggy, gorse-covered hill rising above the rooftops at the foot of the Royal Mile, with the long cliff of Salisbury Crags facing the Old Town.

It feels far wilder than a city park should.

The climb from Holyrood is short but steep, on paved and then rocky paths, past the ruin of St Anthony's Chapel to the summit and its trig point. Keep back from the edge of Salisbury Crags: the cliffs are unfenced. On a clear day the view runs all the way round, and along the coast east to the Bass Rock. Go early in the morning or at the end of the day, when the light is low and the crowds have thinned, and come down past the ducks on St Margaret's Loch.

The walk

Along the top of Salisbury Crags, then up the steep stepped path to the summit, and back over Whinny Hill past St Margaret's Loch.

Distance: 4.75 kilometres, 2 to 2.5 hours, 279 metres of climb.
Start: The car park on Queen's Drive just south of the Scottish Parliament, near Holyrood Palace; buses run to the foot of the Royal Mile.
The path: Rough along the crags and very steep and rocky up to the summit. Keep back from the edge of the crags, and don't go right to their end, where the way down is difficult.
Closed: The Radical Road beneath Salisbury Crags is closed after a rockfall.

Did you know

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags rising above Edinburgh's rooftops, gorse in bloom on the slopes

Did you know

A volcano, 340 million years old.

Arthur's Seat and its crags are what is left of a volcano that erupted around 340 million years ago. Glaciers later carved the cliffs and valleys you walk through today.

Salisbury Crags rise beyond a modern concrete rooftop structure and angular metal roof vents in Edinburgh.

Did you know

Where deep time began.

In the 18th century James Hutton studied the rocks of Salisbury Crags, and what he saw there helped him to the idea of deep time: that the Earth is shaped over unimaginably long ages.

Snow dusts Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags above the rooftops of Edinburgh.

Did you know

Bronze Age fields, in low light.

People farmed these slopes in the Bronze Age. When the sun is low, the lines of their terraces still show on the eastern side of Arthur's Seat.

A wooded hillside rises above the still waters of a loch.

Did you know

Swords in the loch.

In 1778 a hoard of late Bronze Age weapons was found in Duddingston Loch, at the foot of the hill.

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags rising above a church and graveyard, tower blocks at the foot of the slope

Did you know

A king and a stag.

Legend says David I was hunting here when a stag charged him, and a vision of a holy cross saved him. In thanks, it is said, he founded Holyrood Abbey in 1128.

Pedestrians walk past a reflecting pool beneath the Scottish Parliament's canopied entrance, Salisbury Crags rising behind.

Did you know

Prince Albert's park.

In the 1840s Prince Albert led the re-landscaping of the park, laying the paths and roads and making the viewpoints that most walkers still use.

Ben Lerwill

From our guide to Edinburgh

Towering 251 metres above the city, the iconic volcanic peak of Arthur’s Seat offers a proper hill walk close to the heart of Edinburgh. Urban hikes don’t come much better. One theory is that the name was originally Àrd-na-Said, which loosely translates as ‘Height of Arrows’.