As we move into the last week of August I think we in Scotland can say we have had a terrific summer. June was cool admittedly. But the last two months have been warm and sunny, but with none of the excessive heat of continental Europe. Indeed, tourism here has flourished precisely because of the weather. Sunny days with temperatures in the mid-20s are just fine. Aye, we’ll miss it! Indeed, isn’t El Niño threatening us with a stormy autumn?
One day last week I ventured into Edinburgh. During the festival, the centre is really mobbed, but you only need to cross the Meadows, and you would never know there was a festival on. In fact I parked for free near Ravelston Dykes and walked the seven hills of Edinburgh, anticlock. I kept well hydrated.
Corstorphine, Craiglockhart, Braid, Blackford, Arthur’s Seat, Calton, and Castle Hill. I’ve done the walk many times and like to think I’ve got the route down to a fine art. It takes me about six hours. I would say it is the equivalent of climbing a Munro, with a long walk in. I started with a trek past Mary Erskine’s School. I think it was the inspiration for Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Then I traversed Murrayfield Golf Course, got on to the hill, climbed through woodland, and summited abeam Clermiston Tower. One down, six to go.
I descended in a southerly direction, crossed Edinburgh’s main drag, entered Balgreen, and headed for Craiglockhart. It is perhaps the least interesting part of the walk, although Saughton Park and the Water of Leith offer some respite from the traffic. It’s always nice when you leave the hustle and bustle of the city and pass into the serenity and quietude of the next hill. Auckland has a similar feel, when you walk, or run, its 48 volcanoes. At Craiglockhart, the landmark is the old hospital building next to Napier University. Its tower is unchanged from that seen in photographs over a century old. Here, famously, Wilfred Owen met Siegfried Sassoon during the First World War. Owen penned Six o’clock in Princes Street. I might have recited to myself –
Neither should I go fooling over clouds,
Following gleams unsafe, untrue…
The top of Craiglockhart affords the walk’s first substantial view of the whole of Edinburgh, encompassing the Pentland Hills to the south, the Forth’s three bridges to the north west, the Firth of Forth and the Kingdom of Fife to the north, the North Sea to the east, and to the south east, Berwick Law. Beautiful.
Merchants of Edinburgh Golf Course, Greenbank, Braidburn Valley, Comiston Road, Riselaw, Braid Hills. I descended to the streets, but now I was in quiet leafy suburbs, utilising a subtle series of lanes and parks to take me on to Braid Hills Golf Course, where a jolly Englishman, and his dog, joshed me. “It’s easier on the way down. There’s a chairlift, you know!” I said, “I don’t think so.”
I left Braid via the bridle path, descended, then reascended a deep gorge on to Blackford. Here is a series of rough wooden steps. 122 steps. I counted them.
Past the Royal Observatory, back into town. And off to Arthur’s Seat, the biggest hill of the day. Lussielaw Road, Mayfield, Suffolk Road, Craigmillar Park Road, Salisbury Road. I stopped at the Royal Commonwealth Pool and had a snack. Then, on to the Seat. As the afternoon wore on it was getting hot, about 27 degrees. I normally just make a direct beeline up a steep slope but on this occasion I took a gentler turn up Queens Drive to Dunsapie Loch. As usual, the top of Arthur’s Seat was busy. I heard a great plethora of languages. There are two trig points. I touched them both and then headed off in the direction of Holyrood Palace. The big one knocked off. Five down, two to go. On the way down, I met a couple pausing for breath on their way up. The lady asked me how long the climb had taken me, and I explained that I was climbing all seven hills, and had started at Corstorphine at 11.15 am. She seemed taken aback, and said, “May I ask how old you are?” I told her, and she expressed admiration that somebody of my antiquity could possibly undertake such a venture. So I was able to complete my task, walking on air.
St. Margaret’s Well, Holyrood Abbey, Croft-an-Righ, Regent Park, the old Royal High School, St. Andrew’s House, Calton Hill. Busy again. I summited at Nelson Tower, and then descended to Princes Street, past the mobs, got on to the Mound and went up to the Castle via Ramsay Gardens. The Esplanade has been taken over by the Military Tattoo. I touched base, and then headed down to Princes Street Gardens, then west for two miles, back to the car. A lovely day.
I was thinking of Edinburgh again yesterday when I read about Diana Rigg in The Sunday Times. They ran a piece about a memoir soon to be published by her daughter Rachel Stirling, All About My Mother (John Murray, September 10, 2026). I remember once coming up to Edinburgh from London on the shuttle, sometime in the 80s, when Diana Rigg happened to sit in the seat in front of me. I resisted the temptation to say, “Mrs Peel – perhaps even Mrs Bond (albeit briefly) – your reputation precedes you.” I got the sense that she was having a minor tiff with whoever she was with, because at Edinburgh she loped off the plane, across the tarmac, on her own without looking back. She had a beautiful lope.
jamescalumcampbell 