![]() Whether it was ever actually used in battle or siege doesn't seem very clear. Meg's early history is a bit obscure but it was made in the mid-15th century in Hainaut, then part of the Duke of Burgundy's lands. With a caliber is 22 inches, it fired 180 kg of shot at a time over a distance of two miles (at least, from up here it would). Now this is a cannon: Mons Meg, 6 tons of spitting iron. From the 16th century, it was used as a gunpowder store - it's lucky to have survived! What they saved on stained glass they probably lost on candles, summed over the centuries.įrom the other side, inside the chapel. One of the chapel's tiny stained glass windows (from a relatively recent restoration). It was built early in the 12th century, probably by the future David I. The little building on the left is St Margaret's Chapel, the oldest building in the castle. (It's in the Crown Court, on the left is the bookshop, on the right is Foog's Gate.) This bit looks particularly castlelike, though it's apparently just a water cistern. I'm not sure where I was at 1pm on the days I was in Edinburgh, but I never did get to hear it. It only fires blanks though - it's the One O'clock Gun. Unlike all the others, this cannon is in working condition in fact, it's used every day. As you can see, the castle has a (I suppose, literally) commanding view of the city: a cannonball fired from up here would land in amongst all those houses. Looking northish over the battlements, towards the port of Leith, on the Firth of Forth. In fact, much of the castle's architecture dates to the rebuilding after the Lang Siege or later. These destroyed the huge David's Tower, which stood where the Half-Moon battery is today. Forces loyal to Mary, Queen of Scots held the castle against Regent Morton's army, and were only defeated when the latter rather unsportingly called in heavy siege cannon from the English. The longest siege endured by the castle lasted over a year, in 1571-3: the Lang Siege. This road along the base of the Half-Moon Battery, leading into the 16th-century portcullis beyond, looks quite defensible. But, of course, castles that were in use up in the gunpowder era had to have up-to-date weapons. I honestly was a bit surprised to see so many cannon about. gun-ports? For cannon? In a castle? Not arrow loops for archers and crossbowmen? Well, yes. ![]() Beyond the gatehouse is this sheer cliff face and wall, surmounted by the 16th-century Half-Moon Battery, lined with gun-ports. Well, I didn't come here to see some Victorian fantasy castle. The gatehouse, seen above, dates all the way back to 1888! My first objective after hitting town (after finding my hotel and dumping my bags) was Edinburgh Castle. Yet again I go for the easy silhouette effect. Once I managed to put Edinburgh's position in my itinerary to one side, I did really enjoy it for itself.Ībove: the Scottish National War Memorial (see below). But I think it was mostly because, having come direct from Hadrian's Wall, I was now really impatient to get to Rome and see it for myself. ![]() ![]() That may have had something to do with inflated expectations (everybody I know who's been there raves about the place), and it may have had something to do with the fact that my summer wardrobe was no longer adequate in this more northerly clime, in early autumn. It's a lovely city, but I'm sorry to say that I didn't warm to it as much as I thought I would. I'm now covering my last few days in the UK, which I mostly spent in Edinburgh.
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