Half price, then free, for English Heritage members
This place is cared for by Historic Environment Scotland. First-year English Heritage members get 50% off the ticket price; members who have renewed get in free. Bring your valid membership card, and any pre-booked tickets, to ensure entry.
More information
Reduced price while around a third of the ruins is closed for conservation; Historic Scotland publishes a single price, the same online and at the gate, for the castle and gardens. One undated price table is published; recheck when the works end and in spring 2027. Children under 7 free but need a ticket; up to two carers free per transaction; Young Scot and National Entitlement Card holders pay £1. Explorer Pass accepted. No family ticket, joint ticket or audio guide. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card; bookings capped at six people per membership. Historic Scotland members free.
Single published price, reduced during the works; under-7s free with a ticket. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card; bookings capped at six people per membership. Historic Scotland members free.
Single published price, reduced during the works. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card; bookings capped at six people per membership. Historic Scotland members free.
The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.
Historic Scotland says there is a small public car park approximately 100 m from the castle, surfaced with smooth tarmac, with public toilets next to it, and that the site entrance is about 100 m away along a road with a gentle downhill slope and through a gate; visitors can be dropped off 10 m from the site by arrangement on 01620 850 330, and coach parking is listed. No charge or free statement is published, so the status is recorded as unknown; a 2026 visitor and Google describe it as free.
Driving pin: the public car park on Castle Park beside Dirleton's public toilets, 192 m from HES's pin on the ruins. Dirleton is close to the main road between North Berwick and Gullane. Historic Scotland names only its journey planners for public transport.
Dirleton Castle rises from a rock in the heart of the East Lothian village of Dirleton, one of Scotland's oldest surviving strongholds and for 400 years the fortified home of three noble families, the de Vauxs, Haliburtons and Ruthvens. The cluster of 13th-century drum towers, with the great keep at the south-west corner, is among the oldest castle architecture in Scotland. Edward I's forces captured it in 1298; by 1356 John Haliburton had rebuilt it with a great hall, storage vaults, a family chapel and a grim pit prison, and the Ruthvens added a lodging and a fine circular doocot. Cromwell's siege of 1650 left it a ruin, and the Nisbets made it the centrepiece of their designed landscape. Its gardens, a reconstructed Victorian west garden and an Arts and Crafts north garden of the 1920s, hold what is claimed as the world's longest herbaceous border. About a third of the ruins are closed for conservation, but visitors love the doocot and picnics in the garden.
Later dates are in the calendar.
1 April to 30 September daily 9.30am to 5pm; 1 October to 31 March Saturday to Wednesday 10am to 4pm, closed Thursday and Friday; may close for lunch 12.30pm to 1.30pm; last entry 30 minutes before closing; closed 24 December to 4 January. Historic Scotland recommends booking in advance. Notice on 18 October 2026: 'The castle grounds and gardens, along with selected areas of the ruins, are open to visitors. Enjoy exploring the Haliburton Range, including the Great Hall, kitchen, vaults and chapel ... While conservation works are ongoing, around a third of the castle ruins won't be accessible during your visit, including: Guard House, South Entrance, De Vaux range. Ticket prices have been reduced while restrictions are in place.'
The ticket office has ramps either side of its door and a level but restricted floor; the gardens are all on one level with bound gravel paths, a flat lawn and benches, and the gazebo is up 12 steps with a handrail; visitors report that the castle itself cannot be reached by wheelchair users though the gardens can. Public toilets next to the car park; the nearest adapted toilets are on Quality Street, North Berwick; shop with self-service tea and coffee, picnic area, no cafe or audio guide. Dogs on leads outdoors, not in roofed areas.
Dogs: Dogs are allowed on a lead at all times but not in roofed areas; never left unattended. The castle grounds and gardens, on a lead, with a ticket; visitors picnic in the garden with their dogs. On the John Muir Way between Dirleton and North Berwick East Lothian Council asks walkers to keep dogs under close control beside the golf course.
Photo: Dirleton Castle's 13th-century drum towers and the timber bridge to the gate, seen across the lawns of the castle grounds. Gunther Tschuch, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dirleton_Castle_alt.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Dogs, with restrictions
15 km section signed with green fingerposts, level tracks through Archerfield to Dirleton, then grass paths and tracks for 4 km to North Berwick; the leaflet's stop 6 is Dirleton Castle. Free.
