The Seven Hills

EDINBURGH is built on and surrounded by hills. To these hills it owes in a large measure its picturesque character.

Chief amongst its hills is the Castle Rock. In a very real sense the city may be said to be founded on a rock. From this hard and flinty seed, Edinburgh has developed and expanded.

But with all Edinburgh's growth, the rock and its Castle have never been stifled or covered up. They are still the dominant feature in the broad expanse of masonry with which they are now surrounded.

The Castle Rock and its buildings are not only the key to the modern city, they are also the gateway to its romantic past. The story of the Castle is the story of the city's infancy.

It has existed as a stronghold since time immemorial and countless generations of Edinburgh children, in their games under the shadow of the Castle, have lived over in imagination such exploits as those of the intrepid Randolph, who scaled the Rock and with his little company overthrew the Castle garrison in the time of Robert the Bruce.

There has been erected on the summit of the rock the Shrine which is Scotland's National War Memorial, with its book inscribed with the names of the fallen, and its noble tributes in stone and glass to those who served and fell in World War I.

Edinburgh takes a reverential pride in its central height, crowned with the ancient Castle, of whose existence the citizens are daily reminded by the punctual report of the one o'clock gun.

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