A grassy hilltop with twelve Greek columns and a stone tower, looking down over the Old Town.
What Calton Hill looks like
The hill rises 103 metres just beyond the east end of Princes Street, and most of its top is open grass. Several monuments and a copper-domed observatory stand on it, and the Old Town spreads out below the summit.
The is a Parthenon replica, and only twelve of its columns were finished. The 's tower stands about 60 metres to the south-west, and the is a round colonnade with a finial on top.
The Nelson Monument, the National Monument and the Dugald Stewart Monument date from 1807 to 1831. is a 27 metre obelisk in the Old Calton Burial Ground, on the south-west side of the hill.
From the top, the castle sits on its rock across the roofs, with a clock tower and the Old Town spires in the same view. Arthur's Seat's crag rises as a separate skyline beyond the rooftops.
A triangulation pillar stands on the summit, with the city's roofs and the Firth of Forth on the horizon. The dome is copper-green and sits behind a stone wall.
A tarmac path runs down the slope toward the port and its cranes, with the Firth of Forth beyond the roofs. Trees and shrubs grow on the slopes.
Shot in Calton Hill
Death Defying Acts (2007) was filmed on location on the hill, alongside Princes Street Gardens and The Mound. In Sunshine on Leith (2013), Davy and Yvonne are up on the hill, where the film pans across the city.
One Day, 2011
Dugald Stewart Monument
The second establishing shot of Edinburgh in One Day is the hill and its Dugald Stewart Monument. The round colonnade was completed in 1831.
What Calton Hill can double for
Penshaw Monument in Sunderland, England
Penshaw Monument is a Doric temple on a hilltop, based on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens and built in 1844 and 1845. Like the National Monument it is a classical monument on a hilltop, although its front is a tetrastyle portico of four columns rather than a colonnade. The Cheviot Hills are sometimes visible from the hilltop, so wide frames would need a different backdrop and tighter shots of the temple work best. Try searching hilltop Doric temple now.
Lycabettus Hill in Athens, Greece
Lycabettus is a 277 metre hill in central Athens, with a chapel, a theatre and a restaurant at its two peaks and a panorama that takes in the Acropolis. The scale and the central position match Calton Hill, which is also a hilltop inside its own city, though the buildings on top are not neoclassical monuments. The Lycabettus funicular and the summit restaurant would give the hill away in close frames, and pine trees cover its base where Calton Hill has open grass. Try searching central Athens hilltop now.
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