Holyrood Park
Holyrood Park is a public park in central Edinburgh, Scotland about to the east of Edinburgh Castle. It has an array of hills, lochs, glens, ridges, basalt cliffs, and patches of gorse, providing a wild piece of highland landscape within its area. The park is associated with the Palace of Holyroodhouse and was formerly a royal hunting estate. The park was created in 1541 when James V had the ground "circulit about Arthurs Sett, Salisborie and Duddingston craggis" enclosed by a stone wall.
Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano and the highest point in Edinburgh, is at the centre of the park, with the cliffs of Salisbury Crags to the west. There are three lochs: St Margaret's Loch, Dunsapie Loch, and Duddingston Loch. The ruins of St Anthony's Chapel stand above St Margaret's Loch. Queen's Drive is the main route for motor traffic through the Park. St Margaret's Well and St Anthony's Well are both natural springs within the park. Holyrood Park is located to the south-east of the Old Town, at the edge of the city centre. Abbeyhill is to the north, and Duddingston village to the east. The University of Edinburgh's Pollock Halls of Residence are to the south-west, and Dumbiedykes is to the west.
Holyrood Park is owned by the Scottish Ministers, apart from the roads which are classed as Crown Property, the whole being managed by Historic Environment Scotland.
The whole of Holyrood Park with the exception of the occupied buildings, including the lodges, was made a scheduled monument in 2013. Various archaeological survey has taken place across the site, though findings are not yet fully understood.
Natural features
Arthur's Seat
Arthur's Seat is the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park. The hill rises above the city to a height of, provides excellent views, is quite easy to climb, and is a popular walk. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch, a small artificial loch located between Dunsapie Hill and Arthur's Seat and which is a popular location within the park, supporting several bird species.Salisbury Crags
Salisbury Crags are a series of cliffs at the top of a subsidiary spur of Arthur's Seat which rise on the west of Holyrood Park. Below the foot of the cliffs is a large and steep talus slope falling to the floor of Holyrood Park, with a track running in the space between the two. This track was given the name Radical Road after it was paved in the aftermath of the Radical War of 1820 to provide jobs for unemployed radical weavers from the west of Scotland, at the suggestion of Walter Scott.Creation of the Radical Road gave easy access to the upper rockface, and infamously the official Keeper of the Royal Park, Charles Hamilton, 8th Earl of Haddington, abused his position to start quarrying the rock face around 1821, causing damage that is still visible.
Hugo Arnot suggested in the 18th century that the name Salisbury Crags derives from the first Earl of Salisbury, who accompanied Edward III of England on one of his invasions of Scotland. James Grant's view of this in 1880 is that it was "an idle story", and quoted Lord Hailes' derivation from Anglo-Saxon meaning "waste or dry habitation". The modern Gaelic name of the cliffs is Creagan Salisbury, a direct translation of the English; however in 1128, the cliffs were described in a charter under an older Gaelic name, Creag nam Marbh.
The cliffs are formed from steep dolerite and columnar basalt and have a long history of rock climbing on their faces starting from the earliest days of the sport. Harold Raeburn was brought up nearby, and became the leading climber of the Scottish Mountaineering Club not long after he joined it in 1896. By 1900 a number of traditional climbing and sport climbing routes had been recorded by Raeburn and W. Inglis Clark. In recent years the park rangers attempted to regulate access to the cliffs due to hazards to park visitors from loose and falling rocks. Climbers are now restricted to a designated area of the South Quarry, and need to apply for a permit, free of charge, at the education centre in the north of the park in order to be allowed to climb. There is still some activity, though most of it is bouldering rather than free climbing. The finest areas are in the two quarries, although it is only in the South Quarry that climbing is still permitted at this time. The south quarry contains the Black Wall, a well-known bouldering testpiece in the Edinburgh climbing scene. The best known route to climb the Crags is at "Cat Nick" or "Cat's Nick", a cleft in the rocks near the highest point of the Crags. This is named on maps, sometimes leading people to believe that the highest point of the crag is so named.
The Radical Road was closed in 2018 after a large rock fall. A report suggested various possibilities: a sky walkway, reopening the path at users' risk, installing shelters or wire mesh, or permanent closure. In December 2025, Historic Environment Scotland announced plans to re-open the section of the track between the Hawse and the northern end of the South Quarry. This followed inspection and descaling work, rock trajectory modelling and ecological impact assessments. The track was expected to be opened by June 2026.
Samson's Ribs
Samson's Ribs are a formation of columnar basalt.St Margaret's Loch
St Margaret's Loch is a shallow man-made lochan to the south of Queen's Drive. It is around 500 m east of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and about 100 m north of the ruin of St Anthony's Chapel. Once a boggy marshland, the loch was formed in 1856 as part of Prince Albert's improvement plans for the area surrounding the palace. The loch has been used as a boating pond but is now home to a strong population of ducks, geese, and swans.Other geographical features
Other geographical features include the Haggis Knowe, Whinny Hill and Hunter's Bog, which drains into St Margaret's Loch.Cultural heritage
There are traces of four prehistoric hill forts within the park, at Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, Samson's Ribs and Dunsapie Hill. The remains of cultivation terraces can be seen on the eastern slopes of Arthur's Seat.Holyrood Abbey
The ruined Augustinian Abbey of Holyrood was established in 1128, at the order of King David I of Scotland, within his royal deer-hunting park. The abbey was in use until the 16th century. It was briefly used as a chapel royal by James VII, but was finally ruined in the mid-18th century.Palace of Holyroodhouse
The Palace of Holyroodhouse began as a lodging within the Abbey, but eventually grew into a substantial palace. James IV had the first buildings constructed around 1500, although the bulk of the present building dates from the late 17th century, when it was remodelled in the neo-classical style by Sir William Bruce. It remains as the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland.Holyrood Park was augmented in January 1542 with lands at Duddingston bought from David Murray of Balvaird. Both Mary, Queen of Scots, and her father James V kept sheep in some areas of the park, looked after by John Huntar. A dyke was built and then repaired encircling Arthur's Seat and Salisbury and Duddingston Craigs, involving negotiation between Mary of Guise and Edinburgh burgh council.
In May 1562 Dunsapie Loch was the setting for an entertainment at the wedding of John, Lord Fleming, and Elizabeth Ross, which involved a theatrical recreation of the siege of Leith. In 1595, John Skene estimated that the park could hold 800 wethers and 400 ewes. Mary had a place made for picnic suppers in the park. Sheep continued to be kept inside Holyrood Park until 1975.
St Anthony's Chapel
The origin and history of the chapel are obscure, but it was certainly built no later than the early 15th century, as in 1426 it is recorded that the Pope gave money for its repair. The chapel may have been linked to the Preceptory of St. Anthony, a skin hospice, which was based in Leith around this time. It may have been linked to the nearby Holyrood Abbey. James Grant says that the tradition was that the chapel was set up to protect a nearby holy spring. This apparently dried up completely in 1674 but after some decades it rematerialised at a lower point.The chapel was originally rectangular in shape, around, with walls, and was built with local stone. The tower would have stood just over high, and probably had a spiral stair inside. The chapel is depicted on Richard Lee's sketch plan of Edinburgh at the time of Lord Hertford's raid on Edinburgh in 1544. The chapel deteriorated over the years and in 1779, Hugo Arnot in his The History of Edinburgh described it as "a beautiful Gothick building, well suited to the rugged sublimity of the rock... At its west end there was a tower.. about forty feet high."
The chapel is now a ruin: only the north wall and a fragment of the west wall remain next to part of an ancillary building.
Margaret Hall's Cairn
This cairn is situated by the Duke's Walk at the eastern end of Holyrood Park. It commemorates an event on 17 October 1720 when Nicol Muschat, an unemployed surgeon, cut his wife, Margaret Hall's, throat at this spot. He was tried and hanged on 6 January 1721 for this crime. At his trial he said that he had simply tired of her.For centuries, the cairn stood as a memorial to Margaret. However, it was known as Mushat Cairn, bearing the name of her abuser. Sir Walter Scott’s involvement, despite being a restoration effort, also served to muddy the Cairn’s legacy. For those who knew the story of the cairn, this unassuming pile of rocks brought to mind the names of two men – Mushat and Scott.
That changed in 2024. Sara Sheridan, local historian Andy Arthur, and a team of committed activists campaigned for the Cairn’s name to be changed. Their work coincided with a Scottish Government bill aimed at helping to prevent domestic homicides and suicides, to prevent modern versions of Margaret’s tragic story.
The official name of the cairn on Ordnance Survey maps now honours Margaret Hall, not her killer. The cairn has always been Margaret’s. This re-naming makes the cairn a testament to a life cut short rather than a monument to violence.
The present cairn consists of boulders cemented together and was erected in 1823 replacing an earlier cairn which had been removed c.1789. This earlier cairn was formed over several years by the tradition of laying stones on the cairn "in token of the people's abhorrence and reprobation of the deed". It was situated some way to the west of the present cairn with Sir Walter Scott placing it about a furlong to the east of St. Anthony's Chapel. Scott mentions the cairn several times in the novel, The Heart of Midlothian, by siting Jeanie Dean's tryst with the outlaw, George Robertson, at this spot. The site of the so-called Jeanie Deans Cottage can also be seen in Holyrood Park at the south end of St. Leonards Bank.