Falkland and East Lomond (Falkland Hill)

The castle was first adopted as a royal residence by James II in 1458, and the settlement around it evolved into a small and elegant market town. From it, the walk heads through beech and conifer woods, to open heather moorland, managed for red grouse. Curlews, wheatears, meadow pipits, chaffinches and skylarks share the hills with the gamebirds.

The rock of the Lomond Hills, over 350 million years old, rise to twin volcanic peaks. The brow of East Lomond (Falkland Hill) at 1,424 feet (434 metres) above sea level, affords one of the finest views in Scotland.

The Grampian Hills fill the north-west horizon, and 54 miles to the west, Ben Lomond rises to a height of 3,194 feet (974 metres). To the east is the expanse of the North Sea, where the lighthouses on Bell Rock and the Isle of May are clearly visible. The Firth of Forth and the Lothian shore lie to the south.

You descend steeply through huge tracts of swaying red grass. To your left, just off the main track, are 19th century limekilns, relics of the Industrial Revolution. Stone was crushed in them and heated to make lime for mortar and for spreading on the land to increase its fertility.

A lane leads back into the town. In Falkland Square, the tall building on your right is Cameron House, the birthplace of Richard Cameron, the 'Lion of the Covenant'. Born in 1648, he joined the Covenanter's, and was killed in 1680, fighting to overthrow Charles II.

The Gothic church was built in 1849-50 by the Keeper of the Palace at that time, Onesiphorus Tyndall Bruce, whose impressive bronze statue stands in the grounds. Another of his bequests, the handsome Bruce Fountain in front of the church, bears four heraldic lions displaying the Bruce coat of arms and the burgh crest.

Greatly enlarged during the reign of James IV, the palace was transformed by James V during the preparation for his marriages to Madeleine, daughter of Francis I of France, who survived a mere two months of the Scottish climate, and, within a year, to her successor, Marie de Guise.

The Kings Room is where James V died, shortly after hearing the news of the birth of his sole heir - Mary, Queen of Scots. He turned his face to the wall, uttering a poignant prophesy on the Stuart monarchy; "It cam wi a'lass, it will gang wi a'lass". The prophesy proved true, if a little premature; the line ended not with Mary but around 170 years later, in 1714 with the death of Queen Anne.