Arthur's Seat

About Arthur's Seat

Dominating the Edinburgh skyline, this ancient extinct volcano offers a rugged mountain experience within a city park. While the grassy ascent from Dunsapie Loch is gentle, the rocky summit provides a classic Marilyn bagging opportunity with unmatched views over the Firth of Forth and the nearby Salisbury Crags.

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Did You Know?

• •The name is often associated with the legendary King Arthur, but many scholars suggest a more practical origin in the Gaelic 'Suidhe Àrd-Thair', meaning 'Height of the Archer', reflecting its strategic vantage point above the Lothian plains.
• •Robert Louis Stevenson famously championed the hill's character, describing it as 'a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design,' acknowledging how its jagged profile punches well above its 251-metre height.
• •The summit is the remains of a volcanic pipe from a system active 350 million years ago. The nearby Salisbury Crags are a dolerite sill, formed when magma was forced between layers of sedimentary rock before being exposed by glacial action.
• •Evidence of four Iron Age hillforts remains on the hill, with the most prominent defensive ramparts visible near the summit and around the Dunsapie area, proving its long-standing status as a site of human habitation and defence.
• •The view from the trig point is exceptionally wide-ranging; on a clear day, you can look north across the Firth of Forth to the Lomond Hills in Fife, west towards the Pentland Hills, and south to the Moorfoot and Lammermuir ranges.
• •In 1836, seventeen tiny wooden coffins containing carved figures were discovered in a cave on the hill’s northern slopes. Their origin remains one of Edinburgh's great mysteries, with theories ranging from witchcraft to a symbolic burial for the victims of the notorious serial killers Burke and Hare.
• •Despite its appearance as a piece of the wild Highlands dropped into the city, it is likely the only Marilyn in Scotland where you may have to wait in a polite, orderly queue behind a tourist in flip-flops to touch the summit trig pillar.