Arthur's Seat facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Arthur's Seat |
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 251 m (823 ft) |
| Prominence | c. 186 m (610 ft) |
| Listing | Marilyn |
| Geography | |
 Arthur's Seat
Location in Scotland
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| Location | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| OS grid | NT27537295 |
| Topo map | OS Landranger 66 |
| Climbing | |
| Easiest route | hillwalking |
Arthur's Seat (Scottish Gaelic: Suidhe Artair) is an ancient volcano which is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design". It is situated just to the east of the city centre, about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 250.5 m (822 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city and beyond, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. At a spur of the hill, Salisbury Crags has historically been a rock climbing venue with routes of various degrees of difficulty. Until recently rock climbing was restricted to the South Quarry, however access is currently banned altogether by Historic Environment Scotland.
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Natural heritage
Arthur's Seat is the largest of the three parts of the Arthur's Seat Volcano site of special scientific interest (the other parts being Calton Hill and the Castle Rock) which is designated to protect its important geology (see below), grassland habitats and uncommon plant and animal species.
Like the rock on which Edinburgh Castle is built, it was formed by an extinct volcano system of Carboniferous age (approximately 350 million years old), which was eroded by a glacier moving from west to east during the Quaternary (approximately the last two million years), exposing rocky crags to the west and leaving a tail of material swept to the east. This is how the Salisbury Crags formed and became basalt cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the city centre. From some angles, Arthur's Seat resembles a lion couchant. Two of the several extinct vents make up the 'Lion's Head' and the 'Lion's Haunch'.
Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags adjoining it helped form the ideas of modern geology as it is currently understood. It was in these areas that James Hutton observed that the deposition of the sedimentary and formation of the igneous rocks must have occurred at different ages and in different ways than the thinking of that time said they did. It is possible to see a particular area known as Hutton’s Section in the Salisbury Crags where the magma forced its way through the sedimentary rocks above it to form the dolerite sills that can be seen in the Section.
The hill bears a strong resemblance to the Cavehill in Belfast in terms of its geology and proximity to a major urban site.
Human history
A hill fort occupies the summit of Arthur's Seat and the subsidiary hill, Crow Hill.
Hill fort defences are visible round the main massif of Arthur's Seat at Dunsapie Hill and above Samson's Ribs, in the latter cases certainly of prehistoric date. These forts are likely to have been centres of power of the Votadini, who were the subject of the poem Y Gododdin which is thought to have been written about 600 AD in their hillfort on Edinburgh castle crag. Two stony banks on the east side of the hill represent the remains of an Iron Age hill-fort and a series of cultivation terraces are obvious above the road just beyond and best viewed from Duddingston.
A track rising along the top of the slope immediately under Salisbury Crags has long been a popular walk, giving a view over the city. It became known as the Radical Road after it was paved in the aftermath of the Radical War of 1820, using the labour of unemployed weavers from the west of Scotland at the suggestion of Walter Scott as a form of work relief.
The prominence of Arthur's Seat over Edinburgh has attracted various groups and has a particular significance to the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because this is where the nation of Scotland was dedicated in 1840 "for the preaching of the gospel". The apostle, Orson Pratt, arrived in Scotland in early 1850 and climbed the hill to pray to God for more converts.
In 1884, alpine mountain guide Emile Rey visited Edinburgh where he climbed Arthur's Seat, local tradition stating that before doing so he estimated it would take much of the day to reach the top.
Mythology
Arthur's Seat is often mentioned as one of the possible locations for Camelot, the legendary castle and court of the Romano-British warrior-chief, King Arthur.
Tradition has it that it was at the foot of Arthur's Seat, covered by the forest of Drumselch, that Scotland's 12th-century king David I encountered a stag while out hunting. Having fallen from his horse and about to be gored, he had a vision of a cross appearing between the animal's antlers, before it inexplicably turned away, leaving him unharmed. David, believing his life had been spared through divine intervention, founded Holyrood Abbey on the spot. The burgh arms of the Canongate display the head of the stag with the cross framed by its antlers.
The slopes of the hill facing Holyrood are where young girls in Edinburgh traditionally bathe their faces in the dew on May Day to make themselves more beautiful. The poem 'Auld Reekie', written by Robert Fergusson in 1773, contains the lines:
On May-day, in a fairy ring,
We've seen them round St Anthon's spring,
Frae grass the cauler dew draps wring
To weet their een,
And water clear as crystal spring
To synd them clean
Arthur's Seat plays a prominent role in Scottish writer James Hogg's 1824 novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Robert and George Colwan, two feuding brothers, are caught in a fog atop Arthur's Seat and witness what could be interpreted as a Brocken spectre, a strange phenomenon of the light, which causes George to believe that he is seeing a ghost. In the confusion, Robert nearly kills George, but they both escape to the bottom of the hill as the fog begins to clear.
Arthur's Seat has a passing mention as one of the sights of Edinburgh in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
The 2009 novel One Day by David Nicholls begins and ends with the main characters, Emma and Dexter, climbing Arthur's Seat after their graduation from university. Arthur's Seat is shown at the end of the 2011 film One Day, which was based on the novel.
In Jules Verne's novel, The Underground City (or, The Child of the Cavern), Nell, a young girl who is an inhabitant of Verne's Underground City, is taken to Arthur's Seat to view her first sunrise. She has never before been above ground and is being acclimatized to life above ground.
In Catherine Sinclair's Holiday House, the children climb Arthur's Seat during a rare day away from their nurse. On the way down the children misbehave, almost causing Laura to fall over a cliff. She catches herself, and her brother comes to her rescue.
Arthur's Seat is featured in several of Ian Rankin's novels.
In Stephen Baxter's disaster novel Moonseed, the volcano reactivates and obliterates most of Edinburgh during the first act of Earth's eventual destruction.
The 17 coffins found on Arthur's Seat are the subject of a teen fiction novel called Seventeen Coffins written by Philip Caveney and published by Scottish-based publisher Fledgling Press in April 2014.
In Julian May's Galactic Milieu Series, Arthur's Seat has a central role as one of the sites of the Great Intervention. One of the main families in the series lives in Willowbrae on the slopes of the hill.
See also
In Spanish: Arthur's Seat para niños
