Calton Hill helped shape Edinburgh's identity, but now 'it is neglected'
Dramatic erosion after surge in visitors sparks warning over much-loved landmark
Calton Hill is central to Edinburgh in many ways. Sitting on the edge of Princes Street, it offers fantastic vistas in every direction - from Castle Rock to Arthurs Seat, to the bridges across the Forth and to the distant hills of Fife. Standing atop this steep crag, bound snugly by the city’s streets, you feel as though you’re floating above the town, close enough to peek into tenement windows and high enough to appreciate the striking topography of Castle Rock and the Old and New Towns.
From below, Calton Hill’s monuments are a memorable feature of the Edinburgh skyline, quoted by Edinburgh World Heritage as “the most dominant ‘designed’ landscape within [the Edinburgh UNESCO Heritage Site] due to its prominence and character.” The incongruous but charming collection of monuments, from an unfinished parthenon (National Monument), to an upended telescope tower (Nelson Monument) are not only visually unique, they are relics of an era of identity formation in Scotland. In the thriving academic and cultural years of the Scottish Enlightenment and the construction of the New Town, the adornment of Calton Hill was central to Edinburgh’s self-branding as the “Athens of the North.”
The hill has a role in the darker side of Edinburgh’s history, too. Open but unlit at night, the hill has been host to violent crimes, but also provided a place of gathering and escape for oppressed groups in Edinburgh, most notably the LGBTQ community.
And Calton Hill is still important to local Edinburghers, be that daily dog walkers or those attending events like the Gaelic Beltane festival in April and the Hindu Dussehra festival in October. “It has meaning for different people in really different ways,” says Simon Holledge, the chairperson of the Friends of Calton Hill.
A surprising haven for wildlife
Holledge also tells me of the non-human value of the hilly park. “There’s also quite a lot of nature, more than people realise… people think of Calton hill as being this sort of bare outcrop, but on the west side there’s some quite thick vegetation.” The Friends Group has hosted three guided walks, led by naturalists, to discover the bird, plant and invertebrate life on the hill, and have found much of interest. On your own walk you might see insect-feeding birds such as chiffchaffs and goldcrests foraging in the scrub, which could be dotted with the colours of nasturtiums and foxgloves in warmer months. In just a few hours for each walk, groups identified 65 plant species, 24 bird species and 38 species of invertebrate on the hill. Next, the Friends is looking into exploring mammal life, starting with the extensive bat population.
It’s no wonder that when I met Holledge on Calton Hill, even on a decidedly dreich Monday morning, it was dotted with visitors: posing for photos, studying information boards or clambering onto the National Monument. But despite its obvious value, the iconic sightseeing spot is showing signs of fatigue and neglect.
The Friends of Calton Hill has released a series of satellite images demonstrating the rapid erosion of the hill in the last decade. Without intervention, this kind of topsoil erosion can be permanent. After grass is worn away by high footfall, bare soil dries and is quickly blown or washed away, leaving no opportunity for regrowth in eroded areas. On top of this, the Nelson Monument, which housed a museum and offered an even better viewpoint from the top of its tower, has not re-opened since the Covid-19 pandemic, and is now estimated to need £400,000 of repairs.
Over-tourism or under-management?
Edinburgh welcomes 4 million tourists each year, many of whom will take the walk up Calton Hill. Holledge estimates that the hill sees between 500,000 and 1,000,000 visitors per year. But with over-tourism becoming an issue worldwide, should something be done to protect Edinburgh’s unique viewpoint? Elsewhere, 2023 was the year of backlash against unmanageable crowds of tourists. The Greek government announced they would be capping the number of daily visitors to the Acropolis, Venice has banned groups larger than 25, and in Bruges, tourist buses are not permitted in the city centre. In Edinburgh measures claimed to better manage our growing tourism – including the imminent introduction of a tourist tax and the creation of a sustainable tourism strategy – are underway. But with at most a million visitors per year, Calton Hill doesn’t compare to the 17,000 daily visitors at the Acropolis.
Could the issue be not the number of visitors on the hill, but management of the site? As with many of Edinburgh’s parks and greenspaces, Calton Hill has the ambiguous but promising title of being “Common Good” land. Protected by the 1492 Common Good Act, which is still in force today, common good land must be managed “for the benefit of the citizens of the burgh.” But iterations of administrative reform have led to confusion over what exactly common good land is, and, crucially, who should manage it. The City of Edinburgh Council appears to be responsible for the land under the Community Land Empowerment Act of 2015, and certainly manages the fund of revenues from common good land within the council boundaries; as of March 2022 this fund stood at over £2.5 million, the majority of which is ring fenced for maintenance of common good assets.
But Holledge claims that since 2017, the park has received little or no funding or maintenance. While a detailed management plan was published in 2017 (already highlighting the issues of erosion and degradation) Holledge claims that no part of the plan has been implemented. The Friends Group was also disappointed that Calton Hill is receiving no part of a recent £5 million council fund for park maintenance.
Under law, the council is under no obligation to provide specific services or maintenance to common good land - and with budgets being squeezed in all areas, it is, arguably, understandable that parks fall below health and social care, education, and other public services.
But the Council is obliged to protect common good land from being sold or developed in ways that remove the common benefit to Edinburgh citizens. And this protection has at least left space for positive developments on Calton Hill in recent years. The long-empty old observatory is now occupied by the Collective, a contemporary art centre, and the Lookout restaurant. Different groups have planted trees on the hill - although more work is being done to identify the most appropriate species in future.
Attention more than money
Despite being only one year old, the Friends Group has made significant progress. It has secured £4000 funding to re-turf the Hill, from a different Council fund, through the South East Locality office. Although this is only enough to cover 10% of the current erosion, Holledge is optimistic about renewed funding in coming years. Council ecologists will be visiting the Hill this month to assess the possibility of establishing a biodiversity reserve on the west-facing side of the hill, and the group has released researched guidance on native tree species which are likely to thrive on the hill, in preparation for more tree-planting initiatives.
Rather than reducing the number of tourists, Holledge would like to see tourism more effectively monetised to fund the maintenance of Calton Hill. He mentions the road access gate from Regent Road, which could charge tourist buses for access. The Nelson monument could also charge a small fee for entry to the museum, or only for access to the tower viewpoint. The Friends group is also looking at becoming a charitable trust, similar to the Water of Leith Conservation Trust, to maximise its fundraising opportunities.
But in the end, Holledge argues that Calton hill needs attention more than it needs money: “There’s a widespread idea in the council that Calton Hill is a kind of wild place and it kind of takes care of itself in some way. But what we really need is only small sums of money - small and consistent- it’s a matter of good management more than money.”
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