Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Thistle Chapel inside St Giles' Cathedral (2/2)

 

Small as it is, the Thistle Chapel has a lot of lovely pieces as well as symbols of Scotland inside of it. Let me start by this super cute lamb holding an old Scottish flag. It looked like a lamb, but it could be a unicorn, the official animal of Scotland? 

Outside at the entrance on the left, is this detailed stone carving showing everything Scotland and England about it. 

I think about is the floor piece? Or maybe a wall piece, memorial of King George VI. 

Royal Plaque. The animal on the left id definitely a unicorn! And on the right is a lion, of England.

A simple cross, but with it's 4 ends decorated with symbols of Christianity.

Somewhere on the top of a wall, could be made of wood, someone holding a spear, probably stabbing a dragon? Could be St George. But in my heart, I wanted it to be an angel holding a spear and stabbing something, lol. I don't know why. 

Another wood piece at the wall, an angel holding the light for me :)

Stained glass inside the chapel.

And here are my attempts of photograhying those symbolic objects found high on these pedestal. 

Not very sure if you can see anything, even when zooming in. I think some items might be ancient animals of Scotland....

Bugger, here is a link to read everything about this chapel! There is just so much details about it. Or alternately you could go to YouTube and watch a documentary about it.

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Thistle Chapel inside St Giles' Cathedral (1/2)

 

Beauty on the ceiling, an intricate carved design of stones. That was even before we stepped into the Thistle Chapel. It was just a small chapel inside the St Giles' Cathedral, and was not often open. So I considered myself lucky to be able to visit it on my very first try! Truth be told, I wasn't having high expectation of it after reading so many disappointing experience from the travel forum. So let me take you inside for a look :)

Above is the entrance to the Thistle Chapel. As you can see, hardly two person could walk in together! It was so narrow, and inside so small! Yet this was the highlight of my visit to St Giles' Cathedral!

A look inside. Madness! It looked like candles were lighted everywhere illuminating the small room! They are not. Those are not candles, but warm yellow lighting from lamps inside. But everything inside was either made of wood or stone, so everything reflected light, which made the whole chapel shine as it does.

If you look up, and you always have to look up inside churches where the heavens are, there are some stained glass surrounding it, and the center pieces was a similar but larger pieces of stone carving. I guess these are Thistle? The national flower of Scotland. How beautiful.

Here is a full view of the ceiling of thisle! They actually kinda looked like skulls to me. Maybe that's why I find the design so cool!

The sides of the wall were all made of wood and well polished! And on them were more symbols and plaques. The room was pretty small, and I think visitors are advice to keep their visit short during peak hours. But since this was almost evening time, no one came and chase us out. There was a tour guide there with his group, so we kinda got some free info from the him during our visit.

He talked about the tall sharp like structure all around the chapel and how each of them held something significant to Scotland. Since the item were so high up, and rather small, it was hard to capture a good photo of them. I'm gonna bet you could probably read up more about it in the internet.

Here is a selfie of us inside Thistle Chapel with the lovely small cross behind us :)  I could have taken a grander background, given everything inside the chapel was over the top beautiful, but I think this simple background reflects us more, and knowing that it was taken inside this lovely chapel was enough for me to be happy :)

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh St Giles' Cathedral (2/2)

 

Before we move on to the lovely little chapel inside St Giles' Cathedral, this post is dedicated to all the beautiful things I found inside of it. I mean, I did already post one entry about the church itself, but that was mainly focusing on the building itself. This post is meant more to highlight the details of the 'art' pieces I found myself drawn to inside. Not sure if 'art' is the right term to use, or religious artefact? So let's start. Above, stained glasses and stone carvings adorn the place.

The stone carving was everywhere, and very detailed. I thought they were beautiful, but I have read that Rosslyn Church in Roslin Scotland has an even more lovely interior! I can't imagine it, so I'm making sure I'll be visiting it in my next trip!

Somewhere in the middle, there was a small podium? Probably for where the bishop can stand to give his sermons. Usually I would see this made of wood, and quite plain in design. But the ones here were made of stones, and with lovely carvings on it. Take note of the fuller picture above.

And now look at this zoom in photo on just one of the many carvings found on those stone stairs up to the podium. I bet there is a book documenting all these information about the church on sale somewhere. It wouldn't make sense for me to photograph everything when we have the internet ready for us to explore in details. So I'm just leaving some bits and pieces here as a journal of my visit here. 

I've seen many stained glasses before in churches, and in museums. But I don't recall seeing the colours of the stained glasses shinning on to the concrete floor before. And yet here I was, standing there in awe of this beautiful sight before me. It wasn't anything special, and not many people were even aware of it. Yet I stopped, and snapped this photo of the lights on the floor. It was a keepsake for me. A moment in time to remember how beautiful those lights were <3

After visiting the Louvre in Paris on my first trip to Europe and trying to capture almost every stained glass I saw there and then, I would say I've given up the notion of photographing everything I chance upon, cause it was just endless! Yet I still take random photos of it whenever I feel like it. I just thing stained glass is such a beautiful art.

The colours on this one was just wild! Again, I'm sure each and every piece has a story to tell. But maybe just look at them and feel them? That's all I ever do anyway. Just be in awe at them.

I love those that is colour coordinated too, with a certain themed colour like this red white and blue piece. 

Or a typical one like this of Jesus in probably every scene. 

Besides stained glass, there were also stone sculpture and maybe bronze pieces like this one of angels.

Here is another one that looked more like a painting. I love the colour of it, almost like it depicting an era in the past. Almost like middle eastern art. Interesting I've also visited many churches in my Balkan trip in 2025, and found new love for Orthodox Churches there as well. Their 'art' pieces was so different from anything I've seen before. So no matter how many churches I've visited, I would always visit more, cause there is no two that is ever the same. Everyone is unique, just like any sunrise and sunset, any botanical garden or museums etc. 

A simple piece of a man sitting on a chair. I'm sure he is a famous person, but I did't look him up....

I did learn a few things during my church visit, like seeing this guy and learning that he is the founder of Boys' Brigade 1883! In our daily lives growing up, we just took for granted that school activities like the uniform group was just there. Well here I connected the dots that not only the Boys' Brigade, but St John was also founded in Scotland! For a country that is not that big, they do produce, invent, founded many things that we just took for granted today!

There was a full statue of John Knox, this time standing in full height inside the church. He is a very famous in Scotland, probably due to religion. I am unfortunately not very familiar with his works. 

Above are just plaques and memorials, but I am posting it here because of Sir James Young Simpson, who discover Chloroform and its use in surgery. I mean, maybe it's because I came from the east, but it seems that people in the east doesn't seems to be very well known in discovering stuff..... Am I being whitewashed here? Or is that just a fact?

Remember I was telling you about a special chapel inside this cathedral? Well, above is Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer who built the Thistle Chapel. I will show you more about this chapel in the next two post!

Before we left the cathedral, one lighted candle, in memory of my cousin Lim Sin Chuan who passed away April 2025. He was only 59 years old and I have helped looked after him in 2024 when he was hospitalised. I was glad I visited him in January 2025 just before I left Penang. He had been discharged then and I had offered to buy him some food to tied him over since he lives alone. That was the last time I saw him, and I was glad it was a happy moment that we shared. 

Me, standing here in St Giles' Cathedral. I will be back again this April 2026.

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh St Giles' Cathedral (1/2)

 

While our first day in Edinburgh was more of an orientation and getting a feel of the city, we did visit one attraction fully on that day, and that was the St Giles' Cathedral. It was located on the Royal Miles anyway, so it was just a no brainer to just pop in for a look around. Plus it's free entry,  and it was already evening, so there weren't much people around. This was after we've wandered all around the cathedral's front and back and saw the lovely Supreme Court building.

To be honest, I didn't really planned it as part of a place of interest to visit. It was more of a if-we-happens-to-pass-by kinda place. Just so happen we did pass it by on our first day.  Above is the front view of the cathedral. It kinda reminded me of Notre Dame in Paris.

Walking through it's front door, the carvings on the arch and walls were lovely. Very much in detailed, as lovely as those from Notre Dame. I love gothic churches, so I'm glad this was one of them. One of the reason I wanted to visit the church was also to light a memorial candle to my cousin who passed away while I was away in Scotland, hence I was not able to attend his funeral. So this was my way of saying goodbye to him. 

Walking in, I love seeing this very modern looking poster of the cathedral. I thought it was a nice contrast to have something so bright, colourful and modern on display in this gothic old looking cathedral. 

There were also more medieval designed posters and flags inside with the church name on them. I like this one above because of the bright orange and gold colours. It was just like those gold shinning thing on the roof of the church which I shown in one of my previous post about symbols in Edinburgh city.

Inside, you would first noticed how dark it was, and how the ceilings were. And the whole church seems to be illuminated by the lights of the stained glass. It was still quite bright outside, so I was wondering if this was sunlight that was shinning through those glasses, or maybe they have electrical lightings now that illuminate the stained glass? Ha. Maybe I'll go find out in my next visit.

The hallways were just lovely, with the high ceiling arch, kinda similar in design like the John Ryland's Library we saw in Manchester. Perhaps they were all built during the same period? It was definitely a glorious period for architecture! Why can't we have such lovely buildings in our own era now????

A full view of all the domes and arches and the front of the church.

There were also individual sides just as lovely inside where you could sit and admire the beauty of this place. As well as the usual corners on both side with memorials and quite corners dedicated to different Saints. 

One of the pieces I read about and was hoping to see was their grand organ, one of the biggest I've seen perhaps. It was located somewhere on the right side of the church. It was practically covering one side of the wall!

Here is a fuller clearer view of the organ. I don't know, I wasn't expecting it to be so industrial looking. Perhaps I was expecting something French-like, like those in the Phantom of the Opera, perhaps ivory in colour, and with decorations on it. What I got was metallic looking piles with clean lines.... I didn't have a feeling of like or dislike about it, just surprised and acceptance.

The various corners were also almost like museum art pieces. I will do a post on all the beautiful pieces I saw inside this church. For this one above, I just wanted to show the lovely black and while tiles of this little corner. I love tiles, and how by changing their design or colours you can really put in some character to a room or corner. Fun fact, my kitchen tiles in both my home is in an unconventional dark grey colour. And it just kinda works! I wanted dark red, like those apartment I've stayed at in Italy, but I guess red was too much for my husband to accept :P

There was a section with medieval looking flags hanging on both sides of the hall way. This gave me a very Game of Thrones or Old England pride kind of vibes. I love it. I love the colours and design of these flags. I saw so many in my trip to Scotland. It's strange. I've always seen England as the main country to visit in Europe, but after my first trip there almost more than 15 years ago, I never did have an urge to revisit. Yet after a brief trip to Scotland a year ago, I am now going back again to explore more!

Beautiful Royal Plaque hanging at one of the arch hallway. Note the lovely golden ornaments decorating the arches as well. Love the details of that.  It's like saying, there is nothing too small, nothing too plain that we cannot add richness to it.

As it was evening around 5pm or so, there weren't many people inside the church, so we could really take our time to appreciate it. However I did wanted to visit a special chapel that is found inside this church. I wasn't very hopeful that it would be opened, as I've read many disappointing review of people who have visited it and found it closed. Since I was already in the church, I took note of the time and made sure to have enough time to visit the chapel before their closing hours. More on the chapel coming up in future post!

Above, probably a memorial of someone in one corner of the church. Look how beautiful everything is, the tomb/sculpture, the lovely tile design, the stained glass, even the benches built in for visitors to take a seat on. So so beautiful. I love places like these, even though I am not religious. Sometimes the beauty of places like these can make me almost shed tears.

Signing off with some official opening hours of the church and worship timing in case you may be interested.