A peaceful little valley located in the centre of Holyrood Park in Edinburgh, Hunter's Bog lies between Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat. It is easily accessible on foot from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, a quarter-mile (0.4 km) to the northwest. Today the bottom of the valley is a bog-land and natural vegetation has slowly returned after the sheep which once grazed here were removed in the late 1970s.
In 1564, Mary, Queen of Scots ordered the creation of an artificial loch here, retained by an embankment at the northern end. This was gone by the 18th century and a shooting range was established in the valley by the mid 19th C. However its orientation had to changed around 1890, with targets moved from the southern end to across the valley, following complaints from Newington residents that bullets which flew over the targets were landing on their houses. Later a practice trench was established for military training.
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