The One O’Clock Gun: Edinburgh Castle’s Daily Tradition

Every day at precisely 1 pm, a 105mm field gun fires from the walls of Edinburgh Castle. Tourists jump. Locals check their watches. This has been happening since 1861 — and the reason it started involves foggy weather, a Parisian garden, and the problem of calculating longitude at sea.

When: Every day at 1pm, except Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day.

Where: Mills Mount Battery, north face of Edinburgh Castle (near the Redcoat Café).

Since: 7 June 1861 — over 160 years of continuous tradition.

Tip: Arrive at the marked viewing area by 12:50 at the latest. You need a castle admission ticket.

Best way to see it: A Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket (£37) gets you inside the castle with time to spare before the gun fires.

Why Does Edinburgh Fire a Gun at 1pm?

The story starts not with a gun, but with a ball. In 1852, Charles Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, installed a time ball on top of the Nelson Monument on Calton Hill. Every day at 1pm, the ball dropped — a visual signal visible to ships anchored in the Firth of Forth and the port of Leith. Ships’ captains watched for the drop, then set their chronometers. Accurate timekeeping was essential for calculating longitude, and longitude was the difference between a safe passage and a costly one.

The problem was Edinburgh’s haar — the thick sea fog that rolls in from the Firth of Forth, sometimes blanketing the city for hours. On foggy days, the Time Ball was invisible. Ships had no signal.

Enter John Hewat, an Edinburgh businessman who had heard the ‘petit canon’ fire at noon in the Jardin du Palais-Royal during a visit to Paris in 1846. He campaigned for 15 years to bring the idea to Edinburgh. Finally, on 7 June 1861 — after two failed attempts — the first One O’Clock Gun fired from the Half Moon Battery. A 4,200-foot cable ran from Calton Hill to the castle, synchronising the gun with the Time Ball. Both signals fired at the same moment.

Sound travels at roughly 343 metres per second. When ships at Leith relied on the gun, the bang took about 10 seconds to reach them — and navigators factored that delay into their calculations.

Why 1 O’Clock and Not Noon?

This is the question everyone asks. The practical answer: ships’ captains used sextants at noon to take solar readings for navigation. Midday was a busy working moment at sea, not an ideal time to stop and set a chronometer. The Time Ball had already been set at 1 pm for this reason, and the gun simply matched it.

There’s a famous Edinburgh joke that 1 pm was chosen because the Scots were too tight to pay for more than one cannonball a day. It’s not true — but it’s been getting laughs for over a century.

A Brief History of the Gun

The original gun was an 18-pounder muzzle-loading field cannon, fired from the Half Moon Battery by a four-man crew. Since then, the gun has been replaced several times: a 32-pound breech-loader took over in 1913, followed by a 25-pound Howitzer in 1952. The current gun — an L118 105mm Light Gun — has been in service since 30 November 2001 and fires from Mills Mount Battery on the castle’s north face.

The gun has only been fired once in hostilities. On 2 April 1916, during the First World War, it was aimed at a German Zeppelin dropping bombs on Edinburgh. It missed.

The longest-serving District Gunner was Staff Sergeant Thomas McKay MBE, known as ‘Tam the Gun,’ who fired the One O’Clock Gun from 1979 until his retirement in January 2005. He helped establish the small exhibition at Mills Mount that explains the tradition of time guns worldwide. In 2006, Bombardier Allison Jones became the first woman to fire the gun. The gun is operated by volunteer District Gunners from the 105th Regiment Royal Artillery.

In 2024, the tradition faced its most recent threat when new Army health and safety guidelines raised concerns about noise levels from ceremonial guns. The Defence Secretary stepped in to ensure the gun would continue firing — Edinburgh Castle’s geography could accommodate the wider safety cordon required by the new rules.

How to See the One O’Clock Gun

VIEWING TIPS

The gun fires from Mills Mount Battery, on the north side of the castle near the Redcoat Café.

Arrive at the marked viewing area by 12:50 at the latest — good spots fill up fast, especially in summer.

You need an Edinburgh Castle admission ticket to watch from inside the castle grounds.

If you’re outside the castle, you can hear the boom clearly from Princes Street, Princes Street Gardens, and much of the New Town. The cannon points north.

Look toward Calton Hill at the same moment — the Time Ball on the Nelson Monument still drops at 1pm, synchronised with the gun.

If you’re visiting the castle with a guided walking tour, you’ll have plenty of time to see the gun — most 1.5-hour tours that start in the morning finish well before 1 pm, leaving you free to explore and find a good viewing spot.

Don’t confuse the One O’Clock Gun with Mons Meg, the famous medieval siege cannon on the upper battlements. Mons Meg dates from the 1450s and hasn’t been fired since 1681. For more on everything there is to see at the castle, see our highlights guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Edinburgh’s Daily Bang

The One O’Clock Gun has fired over 59,000 times since 1861. It started as a practical tool for maritime navigation and survived into the 21st century as one of Edinburgh’s most distinctive daily rituals. Whether you watch the District Gunner fire from Mills Mount Battery or simply hear the bang echo across Princes Street, it’s a moment that connects you to over 160 years of Edinburgh Castle’s history.