Edinburgh Castle - How long did it take to build?

The creation of the castle started with a volcano with the former royal residence and fortress ever evolving since then.

Castle Rock was formed by a volcano that erupted some 340 million years ago. Ever since, the spot where Edinburgh Castle now stands has been a key point on the map through time.

Most of the buildings which form the Edinburgh Castle which you can see today were created in the 15th Century when the Stuart monarchy was in residence although a 12th Century chapel dedicated to St Margaret, the wife of Malcolm III who died at the castle in the early 1000, can also be found within the boundary wall.

James III did much to create the castle that stands today. Following his rise to the throne in 1460, he made Edinburgh the ‘captial’ of Scotland with Parliaments then held on Castle Rock. He probably also built the principal courtyard now called Crown Square, raised above a labyrinth of vaults. Later, the Great Hall – scenes of feasts, banquets and state occasions – was created.

Edinburgh Castle. Large parts of the fortress were built in the 15th Century with the site becoming increasingly embolded with defences since then. (Photo by LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP) (Photo by LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Register House, between the Palace and the Great Hall, was built to hold the state records in 1542 with the Spur, and advanced form of military fortification, added on Castle Hill, where the Esplanade is today, to protect the Castle from English canon.

As the deeply turbulent campaign of Mary Queen of Scots to retain the throne became immersed in civil war, vast parts of the royal residence were destroyed with castle defences then emboldened. Half-Moon Battery and the Portcullis Gate were added around 1571.

From then on , Edinburgh Castle was pounded through time by conflict, first by the Covenanters and then by Oliver Cromwell’s Army which turns the Great Hall into barracks with the castle effectively now a garrison fortress. The threat of the Jacobites from the early 1700s added further barracks and improved defences. As the risings to restore the Stuart monarchy to the throne continued, Edinburgh Castle endured a long period of further fortification with the site increasingly militarised.

The gargantuan New Barracks were built in 1796 to house troops for the French Revolutionary Wars in 1796, with the castle then a Prisoner of War depot. Later it became the regimental depot of the Royal Scots.