The Castle's History

Members of the Royal Artillery fire the famous one O'Clock gun at Edinburgh Castle. The one O'Clock gun at Edinburgh Castle is in exact synchronisation with the time ball in Calton Hill's Nelson Monument and Greenwich Mean Time.

Edinburgh Castle is Britain's second most popular tourist attraction. In a paradox of peacetime the very defences which make the Castle what it is also hamper the approaches both of visitors and of those who work there. Recently, therefore, engineers have driven a broad tunnel through the living rock and into the very heart of the Castle, bypassing at a stroke the accumulated fortification of centuries. Nevertheless, Edinburgh Castle still rises magnificently each year to the occasion of the Tattoo. All its atmosphere, power and majesty affirm that this was the proudest and mightiest fortress in the land, a residence and stronghold of kings.