Edinburgh's Royal Mile – from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood through the Old Town

The Royal Mile is the main street of Edinburgh's Old Town, running for 1.43 kilometres – almost exactly a Scots mile – from Edinburgh Castle in the west to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in the east. It falls from 109 metres at the castle to 42 metres at the palace and is made up of six streets: Castle Esplanade, Castlehill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street, the Canongate and Abbey Strand. Together with the Georgian New Town, the Old Town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

Edinburgh Castle on its volcanic rock

The castle stands 135 metres above sea level on the remnant of an extinct volcano. The Old Town is a classic crag-and-tail: glaciers in the last ice age scoured away the softer ground around the hard volcanic rock, leaving a ridge running east, along which the Royal Mile was built. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, St Margaret's Chapel, built around 1130–1140 at the highest point, is the oldest surviving building in the castle. James IV completed the Great Hall in 1511, the giant cannon Mons Meg dates from 1457, and the castle is the traditional home of the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels. The Stone of Destiny returned here in 1996, and the One O'Clock Gun has been fired six days a week since 1861, originally as a time signal for ships on the Firth of Forth.

Castlehill, the Lawnmarket and St Giles'

Below the Esplanade, where the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is staged each year, Castlehill passes the Outlook Tower and Camera Obscura. On the Lawnmarket, Gladstone's Land is a preserved 17th-century merchant's townhouse owned by the National Trust for Scotland. Further down, St Giles' Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, stands in Parliament Square. During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the High Street fills with performers and buskers.

The closes and the Great Fire of 1824

Multi-storey tenements became the norm in the Old Town from the 16th century, and between them narrow closes, often only a few feet wide, run steeply down to the north and south. World's End Close and Riddle's Court are among them. In 1824 a great fire destroyed most of the buildings on the south side of the High Street between St Giles' and the Tron Kirk; the rebuilding on the old foundations created many of the passages and vaults beneath the street. To the south lie the Cowgate and, below the castle, the Grassmarket.

The Canongate, the Parliament and Holyrood

Where the High Street narrows at the former Netherbow stands John Knox House, extended in 2006 with the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Beyond it the Canongate runs down to the Scottish Parliament Building and to Abbey Strand, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. The Parliament met in the Assembly Hall on Castlehill from 1999 until its new building opened in 2004.

How to walk the Royal Mile

Start early at the castle to beat the crowds and stay for the One O'Clock Gun if you can, then walk downhill, ducking into the closes as you go, and finish at Holyrood. Allow a full day with the castle and the palace. See the city in VERA PI's City of Edinburgh pages and VERA PI Scotland, and find more city guides among metromode.co's destinations.

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