Attraction in Edinburgh

The Bass Rock is a volcanic island of dramatic appearance rising from the Firth of Forth near North Berwick in East Lothian, a 107-metre plug of basalt whose sheer white-encrusted cliffs are home to one of the largest single-rock gannet colonies in the world. The island supports a breeding colony of approximately 150,000 northern gannets, so many that the species was formally named Morus bassanus in recognition of the rock's primacy as a gannet site. The colony is visible and audible from the shore at North Berwick, but boat trips from the harbour provide a close encounter with the birds and the island of quite extraordinary intensity. The gannet colony occupies almost every available surface of the island during the breeding season from February to October, the birds packed so densely onto every ledge, slope and flat surface that the white guano-encrusted rock is effectively invisible beneath the mass of white plumage. The noise, the smell and the ceaseless activity of the colony on a calm summer day create a wildlife spectacle of genuine primordial power, quite unlike any other seabird experience available in Britain. The gannets' aerial fishing dives, plunging from heights of up to thirty metres into the Firth with folded wings, provide constant dramatic display in the waters surrounding the rock. The island also has a considerable historical and political significance. A castle was built on the rock in the fourteenth century, exploiting its natural defensibility, and the Bass Rock gained particular notoriety in the late seventeenth century as a state prison for Covenanters and Jacobites. In 1691 a small party of Jacobite prisoners managed to seize control of the castle from their captors and hold it for three years in defiance of the Williamite government, one of the more remarkable episodes of resistance in Scottish history. The Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick provides excellent background to the Bass Rock and the wildlife of the Firth of Forth, with live camera feeds from the colony and boat trips departing from the harbour.

Tantallon Castle on the East Lothian coast is one of the most dramatically positioned medieval fortifications in Scotland, a great curtain wall castle of the late fourteenth century built by the Douglas family on a promontory of red sandstone jutting into the Firth of Forth with the Bass Rock visible offshore. Historic Environment Scotland manages the castle, whose ruined but substantial remains provide some of the finest coastal views of any medieval castle in Scotland. The castle was built approximately 1350 for William Douglas, first Earl of Douglas, as the principal stronghold of the Black Douglas family. The massive curtain wall across the landward approach, rising to approximately fifteen metres and flanked by towers and a great twin-towered gatehouse, is one of the finest examples of curtain wall fortification in Scotland. The castle withstood several sieges before being finally reduced by Cromwellian artillery in 1651, and the marks of the bombardment can still be seen in the masonry. The combination of the great wall, the sea views, the Bass Rock offshore and the dramatic red sandstone cliffs dropping to the sea on three sides creates one of the most compelling castle visits in Scotland. The walk from the car park through the castle earthworks and out to the cliff edge provides views that place the fortress in its extraordinary coastal landscape context.