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Where in Scotland?

Choose a part of Scotland to see its castles, or scroll on for them all.

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Did you know20 hours ago

The flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.

The route is just 2.74 kilometres long, about 1.7 miles. Loganair has flown it since 1967 in Britten-Norman Islanders, small planes with eight seats, and Guinness World Records lists it as the shortest domestic scheduled flight anywhere. In good winds, the time actually spent in the air has been reported at under a minute. For the people of the two islands, though, it is not a novelty at all but an ordinary way of getting from one island to the other.

Read about it
Castle of the day19 hours ago

Boddam Castle and Stirling Hill.

Cliff-tops, a castle ruin on a finger of rock, and the flooded quarries of the red Peterhead granite.

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Did you know19 hours ago

The curved gun wall at Edinburgh Castle was built around the wreckage of a tower that fell down in a siege.

Before the Half Moon Battery there was David's Tower, a huge medieval keep begun in 1367 by King David II. It came crashing down during the Lang Siege of 1571 to 1573. What went up afterwards was built on and around its ruins rather than in place of them. From behind those embrasures the cannon could rain down on anyone coming up the approach to the castle.

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Just opened19 hours ago

The Palm Houses at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh reopen after their restoration.

The ironwork has been repaired, thousands of panes of glass replaced and the sandstone conserved. Inside, under the glass domes, are rare tree ferns, and around 1,000 ladybirds have been let loose to keep pests off the plants.

Photograph: Nicole’s POV on Google MapsSee Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
From the magazine18 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 10Issue 10Spring / Summer 2025

Kate Duncan, who runs A Highland Life at Rannoch in Perthshire, is the first woman, and the youngest ever, to be Chieftain of the Rannoch Highland Gathering.

The estate where Kate and her husband Andrew run A Highland Life has been in her family for three generations, and the gathering has been part of her life since she was small. She started out on the mat of a clown called Silly McB, running in her age-group races, then spent her schoolgirl years on the Highland Dancing stage and later helped to put up the tents. The games have been held on the third Saturday in August since 1881, with a couple of breaks for the world wars. Today Kate leads them, though it is still very much a community event, with Andrew helping to plan, set up and run it.

Read the full story in Issue 10
True or false18 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

True or false: the Picts, the people who carved Scotland's Pictish symbol stones, vanished overnight.

Did you know17 hours ago

Keny Drew, a stained glass maker based in Crail in Fife, trained as a photographer and now puts screen-printed images into his glass.

He gained an advanced diploma in illustrative photography at the Glasgow College of Building and Printing in 2000. He then worked with several stained glass companies, and found a way to fuse screen printing, photography and stained glass into a style of his own. Along the way he worked on large restoration projects in Scotland's churches, which gave him a grounding in the traditional craft. Today he makes his own clear textured glass in the kiln and mixes it with bold colour, light acid etching, hand painting and screen-printed images. The Scotsman has praised 'Keny Drew’s ingenious, evocative merger between photography, screenprinting and stained glass'. Every piece is made by hand to order at his studio in the East Neuk.

See Keny Drew East Neuk Glass · Fife
From our collectionsA collection17 hours agoCaithnessCastle Sinclair GirnigoeAssyntArdvreck CastleCaithnessCastle & Gardens of MeyLochalshEilean Donan CastleAssyntHermit's CastleInvernessInverness CastleCaithnessKeiss CastleSutherlandDunrobin Castle

Stops Worth Making on the North Coast 500

The North Coast 500 is one of the great road trips, and the best of it is in the stops along the way. From beaches and bridges to castles and cliff-top stairways, these are the places worth pulling over for.

See the whole collection
Did you know16 hours ago

J.M. Barrie, from Kirriemuir in Angus, gave Peter Pan to a London children's hospital, and a special law lets it earn from the story for ever.

In 1929 Great Ormond Street Hospital asked Barrie to join a committee raising money to buy land for a new wing. He said no, but added that he hoped to find another way to help. Two months later the hospital's board learned that he had given it the rights to Peter Pan. When the copyright was due to run out, a special provision in the UK's 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act gave the hospital the royalties in perpetuity, meaning for ever. Keeping to Barrie's wishes, the hospital has never said how much Peter Pan has raised.

Read about it
From Issue 10 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 1016 hours ago

A Walking Guide to Aberdour

A walk round Aberdour in Fife, half an hour by train from Edinburgh, starting at the castle beside the station in the village the Victorians called the Jewel of the Fife Riviera.

Read the story
Did you know16 hours ago

In the 1960s a whisky broker, Brodie Hepburn, saw a distillery in the empty cotton mill at Deanston, near Doune.

The mill on the River Teith was built in 1785 and for nearly two centuries it drove the local industry, with homes and shops for the people who worked in it. When the looms stopped, the great building stood empty. Hepburn, a sharp-eyed broker in the distillery's own words, saw more than dust in it, and in the 1960s the mill was turned over to whisky. The river that once drove it now gives the whisky its water.

See Deanston Distillery · Stirlingshire
What's on15 hours agoEdinburghHARVEST: Contemporary Craft Fair9 Oct to 19 OctGlasgowThe Royal National Mòd 20269 Oct to 17 OctDumfries and GallowaySouth of Scotland Dark Sky Festival9 Oct to 18 OctIsle of TireeTiree Wave Classic 202610 Oct to 16 OctAberdeenshireRoyal Deeside Railway11 Oct to 25 OctGlasgowBarbie: The Exhibition13 Oct to 18 Oct

What's on in the next few weeks.

HARVEST: Contemporary Craft Fair from 9 October, The Royal National Mòd 2026 from 9 October, South of Scotland Dark Sky Festival from 9 October.

See everything on