Old West Sally Port

The little postern gate high up on Edinburgh Castle always fascinates me. It doesn’t look very steep but it is and would be difficult to climb up there and yet has been a place of attacks.

The Royalist Duke of Gordon surrendered the castle to the Viscount Dundee at the Old West Sally Port postern after a siege in March 1689.

James VII (of Scotland) had been deposed in favour of William of Orange as King of England…… Not long after, in early 1689, the Estates of Scotland, after convening to accept William formally as their new king, demanded that Duke of Gordon, Governor of the Castle, surrender the fortress. Gordon, who had been appointed by James VII as a fellow Catholic, refused. In March 1689, the castle was blockaded by 7,000 troops against a garrison of 160 men, further weakened by religious disputes. On 18 March, Viscount Dundee, intent on raising a rebellion in the Highlands, climbed up the western side of the Castle Rock to urge Gordon to hold the castle against the new King.[82] Gordon agreed, but during the ensuing siege he refused to fire upon the town, while the besiegers inflicted little damage on the castle. Despite Dundee's initial successes in the north, Gordon eventually surrendered on 14 June, due to dwindling supplies and having lost 70 men during the three-month siege.

In 1715 Jacobite forces broke through the postern gate and so it was decided that the defence walls would need to be strengthened.

Now despite the outcome of the September's vote in Scotland there should be no worries about a seige on the castle.