Capital hills
Hill-walking within the city limits? Tick. A host of summits to choose from. Tick. Is Edinburgh the greatest city in the world for walkers? We think so…
Has ever a city been so blessed?
“This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful again.” it breaks the heart again and ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH, WRITER, EDINBURGH RESIDENT
LISTEN CAREFULLY NOW, because when someone from Glasgow tells you something good about Edinburgh, he means what he says and it must be something really good. Many cities have large tracts of countryside-aping parkland within their boundaries; Pollok Park in Glasgow and Hampstead Heath in London are just two of the better-known examples. Some hillier cities, though, offer something approaching upland wildness, with opportunities for actual summiting, and none more spectacularly so than Edinburgh. In fact, popular tradition gives Edinburgh, like Rome, seven hills: Castle Rock, Calton Hill, Arthur’s Seat, Corstorphine Hill, Blackford Hill, the Braid Hills, Craiglockhart Hill. Actually this is misleading; on the one hand, some of these hills are no longer wild and are certainly not for the walker. Castle Rock has a sizeable fortress lobbed onto its summit, hundreds of thousands of visitors and offers little chance of wandering lonely as a cloud. Calton Hill has more open space but is still built up, with several tourist attractions including the famously unfinished National Monument. The summit has a breathtaking view along Princes Street and towards the castle, as fine a cityscape as you’ll see anywhere, but it doesn’t involve hillwalking or fellwalking in any accepted sense.
On the other hand, Arthur’s Seat is just one of many summits within Holyrood Park. A disgruntled Glaswegian (who, me?) might grumble about it being typical of swanky Edinburgh to go and have a complete range of real hills with rocky summits, crags, corries, ridges and lochs within its bounds. But the park is a glorious place.
It’s well-known, of course, but some bits are less frequented than others. The summit of Arthur’s Seat, fine though it is, will always be the busiest spot. Try the path along the foot of the Salisbury Crags, starting from near the Parliament building, returning from The Hawse – a real mountain pass as its northern English sounding name would suggest – along the edge of the crags themselves. The highest point (570ft/174m) is a summit in itself and always less busy than Arthur’s Seat. The city spreads beneath you, while behind you, skylarksinging moorland slopes down to the low
glen holding the Hunter’s Bog.
Beyond this, the ground sweeps up again towards the 822ft/251m polished rocky skull of Arthur’s Seat. You could spend a good day exploring every corner, every summit in Holyrood Park. Every nook has a history, every cranny has a story (often grisly) and there are some fantastic names; Haggis Knowe, say, or the Gutted Haddie.
But let’s get to the less renowned hills on the list. Corstorphine Hill rises unobtrusively next to Edinburgh Zoo and behind the humungous Holiday Inn, a quick bus run (12, 26, 31) from Haymarket or Princes Street. A path climbs steeply from Corstorphine Road near the zoo. There’s open ground on the lower slopes though much of the hill is wooded. One viewpoint, the Rest and be Thankful, has a stunning prospect of Arthur’s Seat, Calton Hill, the Castle and the Firth and is the spot where Alan Breck and Davie Balfour parted at the end of their long, hazardous journey from Mull in Stevenson’s Kidnapped. (Go and read it now, if you haven’t already.)
A large metal fence runs to the west of the hill. This encloses the zoo, home of Scotland’s pandas and much else and keeps non-paying guests out and the animals in, but if you’re lucky you’ll be able to see something. I caught a glimpse of a sleepy wallaby. There’s little view from the heavily-wooded summit area of the hill ( highest point 531ft/162m), but there is an impressive tower built in the late 19th century as a memorial to Sir Walter Scott (if you’re not bumping into Stevenson in Edinburgh, you’re bumping into Scott). It’s just the sort of thing a wandering Scott hero might come upon in a thunderstorm as he flees from hostile soldiers.
The real undiscovered gems are clustered towards the south of the city. Well, not undiscovered – local people know them well – but much less visited by tourists and walkers. Blackford Hill has, on its eastern flank, the famous Royal Observatory but also offers enjoyable walking. There are many approaches, but from Hermitage Drive to the west a quick climb to the summit includes a quite aweinspiring flight of steps that makes the legendary Waverley Steps (from Waverley Station to Princes Street) look quite insignificant. The main summit (538ft/164m) is an impressive viewpoint but another rocky little knobble, Corbie Knowe, is worth visiting too. Descending again by the monster stairway you can combine the climb with a walk through the Hermitage of Braid nature reserve, a beautiful wooded glen with the historic house of the same name serving as a visitor centre. There’s a tearoom at the western end if you need something to motivate the youngsters.
Further west, Craiglockhart Hill rises near Colinton Road, which is amply provided with buses. It’s actually two hills (‘seven hills’ indeed…). Easter Craiglockhart Hill (515ft/157m) rises above a woodland nature reserve, while the craggier Wester Hill soars to 577ft/176m above the Craiglockhart Campus of Napier University. It’s a great viewpoint, like all these hills, and the loneliest I visited. Some of the paths through the crags are a little slithery in wet weather but stick to the main ones and you should be fine. On your way it’s worth pausing to examine the university campus. It’s based around the former Craiglockhart Hydropathic which was used as a hospital during the First World War; it was where Wilfred Owen met Siegfried Sassoon. The original Hydropathic building is now combined with a lot of new ones which are, to be honest, much more attractive.
And so to the Braid Hills, just south of Blackford Hill and easily combined with it. The range is deeply bitten into by golf courses, but the main summit is easily reached without risking a golf ball/ cranium interface if you stick to the main paths. Incidentally, the main summit is called Buckstone Snab (682ft/208m), a name that might sound more at home in the northern Pennines. There’s a viewpoint indicator and trig point at the summit.
Summiting the Hills of Edinburgh would be an enjoyable project for a couple of days, using the capital’s excellent bus network to get about; even visiting one or two would add a bit of walking interest to a traditional city break.
Of course, all these summits are outliers of the Pentland Hills which start tumbling to sea level on the outskirts of Edinburgh. If you get bus number 14 to its terminus at the appropriately-named Hillend, you find yourself at the home of Edinburgh’s own ski resort, the Midlothian Snowsports Centre, which boasts the longest dry ski-slope in Europe. From here walkers can access the eastern tops of the Pentlands and look down on the skiers (in all sorts of ways).
That’s Edinburgh’s Hills, then. And once you’ve sampled them, get over to Glasgow and explore the Campsies and the Kilpatricks.
You’ll like them, too.