Craigmillar Castle stands on a low hill three miles south-east of Edinburgh's city centre, and it is quite remarkable that so few visitors find their way to it. Here is a castle in excellent condition, its tower house, curtain walls, and outer courtyard still standing to impressive height, with sweeping views across the city toward Arthur's Seat and the Firth of Forth. It saw royal guests, a famous conspiracy, and centuries of clan ownership — yet it sits in the shadow of the more famous fortress on the castle rock and is too often overlooked entirely.
What is Craigmillar Castle and where is it?
Craigmillar Castle is a ruined but well-preserved medieval courtyard castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It sits on the south side of the city in the area of Craigmillar, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from Edinburgh city centre. The castle is now cared for by Historic Environment Scotland and is open to the public throughout the year. Its name derives from the Gaelic Creag a' Mhaol Àird — meaning "rock of the bare summit" — which describes the rocky outcrop on which the original tower was built. It is sometimes called "Edinburgh's other castle," a label that does justice to its quality, if not quite to its individuality.
Which clan built Craigmillar Castle?
Craigmillar Castle was built and long held by the Preston family — a clan with deep roots in Edinburgh's civic and political life. The Preston family were first granted lands at Craigmillar by King David II in 1342, and a further grant from King Robert II in 1374 gave them the remaining portion of the estate. It was Sir Simon de Preston — or possibly his grandson Sir George Preston — who began construction of the tower house that forms the castle's core. By 1425, a charter was sealed at Craigmillar, confirming the Prestons were in full residence. Clan Preston would hold the castle for nearly three centuries, shaping it through successive building campaigns into one of the most architecturally complete medieval castles in Scotland.
How old is Craigmillar Castle?
The core of the castle — the L-plan tower house — dates to around 1400, making it over six hundred years old. The surrounding inner courtyard wall was added in the 1440s by Sir William Preston, who had travelled extensively in France and drew on continental castle-building ideas for his new work. The outer courtyard, enclosing a chapel, dovecote, and fish pond, came later, around the early sixteenth century. The fish pond — shaped like the letter P for Preston — survives as a nationally significant archaeological feature: few such medieval fish ponds are preserved in Scotland to this standard.
The Prestons and Edinburgh's civic life
The Prestons were not merely castle-builders. Sir William Preston, who added the great courtyard wall, is known for another deed entirely: he brought back from a pilgrimage in France the arm of Saint Giles — the patron of Edinburgh — and presented it to the High Kirk of the city. The Preston Aisle within St. Giles' Cathedral is named in his honour. This was a family that moved in the highest circles of Scottish religious and civic life, as well as the military and political world of the crown. Their castle reflected their ambitions, growing steadily over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries into a residence fit for the most distinguished visitors Scotland could produce.
Mary Queen of Scots at Craigmillar
Craigmillar's most famous chapter came in November 1566, when Mary Queen of Scots arrived at the castle to convalesce following an illness after the birth of her son — the future King James VI. She remained until December of that year. During her stay, a group of nobles gathered at the castle and formed what became known as the "Craigmillar Bond" — an agreement to dispose of Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Darnley was deeply unpopular, widely blamed for the murder of Mary's Italian secretary David Rizzio earlier that year, and regarded by the Scottish nobility as an obstacle to stable government.
Whether Mary herself knew of or consented to the plot against her husband remains one of the most debated questions in Scottish history. What is certain is that Darnley was murdered in February 1567, in what appeared to be a deliberate explosion at Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh. The subsequent events — Mary's hasty marriage to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, her imprisonment at Lochleven Castle, and her eventual flight to England — all flowed from that night at Craigmillar and its aftermath. The castle thus sits at the very centre of one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the Scottish crown.
Clan Seton and the Mary Queen of Scots connection
Among the most loyal supporters of Mary during her imprisonment and after her flight was Clan Seton, whose members risked considerable danger to serve and protect her. The Setons' devotion to Mary became part of their clan's defining legacy. Mary's time at Craigmillar, and the Seton involvement in her story, are a reminder of how deeply the fates of individual clans were bound up with the fortunes of the Scottish crown.
Earlier royal connections — James V and the plague years
Craigmillar had seen royal visitors before Mary's arrival. In September 1517, during a severe outbreak of plague in Edinburgh, the five-year-old King James V was moved to Craigmillar for safety. His French guardian De la Bastie had new locks made for the young king's chamber and the two iron gates of the castle, and a stable was built for his mule. The castle was trusted enough to shelter a child king — a mark of how firmly established the Prestons were within Scotland's ruling network.
The siege and destruction of 1544
In 1544, during the period known as the Rough Wooing — Henry VIII of England's brutal attempt to force a marriage between the young Mary and his son Edward — English troops under Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, sacked and burned Craigmillar as part of a wider campaign of destruction across Lothian and the Borders. Sir Simon Preston had it repaired and extended in the aftermath, rebuilding on a grander scale. The castle that Mary Queen of Scots visited in 1566 was in many respects the post-1544 reconstruction — new in its walls, old in its bones.
From the Prestons to the Gilmours
In 1660, Craigmillar was sold to Sir John Gilmour, Lord President of the Court of Session — the most senior judicial officer in Scotland. Gilmour undertook significant renovation work, adding a new west range with larger windows and more fashionable interiors. But by the early eighteenth century, the Gilmours had moved to nearby Inch House, preferring modern comforts, and the castle began its long slide into picturesque ruin. J.M.W. Turner sketched Craigmillar, and William Byrne engraved it in 1782, when Romantic interest in medieval Scotland was growing across Europe. Today it stands much as the Romantics found it: roofless in places, wind-swept, but structurally sound.
The architecture of Craigmillar Castle
Craigmillar is a textbook example of how Scottish castle architecture evolved across three centuries. At its core is the original L-plan tower house, its walls up to 3.3 metres thick, with vaulted ceilings on the second and fourth floors and a great hall that once served as the principal social space of the household. Around this the inner courtyard wall — added in the 1440s — creates a protected enclosure with rounded corner towers carrying keyhole-shaped gun loops. Above the gateway, the Preston arms are carved beneath the royal arms of Scotland: a statement of loyalty and status in stone.
From the roof of the keep, Edinburgh Castle is visible on its rock to the north-west, Arthur's Seat rises to the north, and the Pentland Hills line the southern horizon. It is one of the finest panoramas in Edinburgh — and almost always enjoyed in relative peace, free from the crowds that gather around the city's better-known attractions.
Craigmillar on screen — Outlander and beyond
Craigmillar Castle has found a new audience through screen productions. It appeared in the television series Outlander, where its stark stone walls served as Ardsmuir Prison in the storyline set after Culloden. It also featured in the film Robert the Bruce (2019). The castle's authentic medieval atmosphere and relatively undisturbed setting have made it attractive to filmmakers seeking locations that feel genuinely ancient rather than restored or reconstructed.
Other clan connections at Craigmillar
While the Prestons are the clan most closely associated with Craigmillar, the castle's story touches many of Scotland's great families. Clan Hamilton and other powerful Lowland nobles were among those who gathered at Craigmillar during the conspiracy of 1566. The Livingstone family and other Edinburgh-area clans were part of the social and political world in which the Prestons moved. Edinburgh's castles were never just the property of a single family — they were nodes in a network of obligation, alliance, and rivalry that connected Scotland's ruling class across generations.
Visiting Craigmillar Castle today
Craigmillar Castle is managed by Historic Environment Scotland and is open year-round, with extended summer hours. It is reachable by bus from Edinburgh city centre, and there is parking nearby. The site includes the full castle complex — keep, inner and outer courtyard, chapel ruins, and the remarkable P-shaped fish pond — as well as the surrounding castle park. For more on Scotland's castle heritage, our guide to Edinburgh Castle's history and our wider roundup of legendary Scottish clan sites offer a broader perspective on the country's extraordinary built heritage.
Why Craigmillar matters
Craigmillar Castle is where ambition and loyalty collided in 1566 — where nobles gathered to decide the fate of a queen's husband, and where Mary herself may or may not have known what was being planned on her behalf. It is where a child king sheltered from plague, where a great Edinburgh family built their legacy in stone, and where the drama of the Scottish Reformation played out in miniature. For anyone with Scottish ancestry, particularly those with connections to the Preston, Seton, Hamilton, or Livingstone families, Craigmillar speaks directly to that heritage.
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