St Giles’ Cathedral

Quick facts

Date

Church founded in the twelfth century; principal surviving fabric rebuilt after 1385 and enlarged through the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; major later reconstructions and additions

Architect / designer

Medieval builders unknown; later work includes John Mylne, William Burn, William Hay, George Henderson and Robert Lorimer

Type

Church of Scotland parish church, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, visitor site and national ceremonial church

Designation

Listed building, Category A (LB27381)

OS grid reference

NT 25727 73590

A church made by accumulation

St Giles’ occupies the crown of Edinburgh’s High Street beside Parliament Square. Its low, spreading mass reflects centuries of lateral growth: aisles, chapels and transepts gather around a central tower rather than forming the easily read plan of a single building campaign. The tower’s open stone crown, supported on eight flying buttresses, turns this complex footprint into a landmark visible across the Old Town.

The exterior seen today is partly medieval form and partly nineteenth-century interpretation. William Burn recased most of the church in smooth ashlar in 1829–33, leaving the central tower untreated, while altering the internal proportions to produce a more conventionally “cathedral-like” effect. Pointed windows with flowing tracery, crocketed pinnacles, cresting and strongly buttressed corners make the exterior appear more unified than the underlying chronology really is.

Medieval origins and expansion

The cathedral’s own history dates its foundation by David I to 1124. Historic Environment Scotland is more cautious, describing the first church as probably begun around the mid twelfth century. That Romanesque building was damaged in English raids, especially in 1385. The rebuilding that followed created an aisled cruciform church with a five-bay nave and four-bay choir, while later patrons and civic bodies added chapels and aisles.

The Moray Aisle followed soon after the late-fourteenth-century rebuilding; the Albany Aisle was built in 1401–10. The Town Council began the Preston Aisle in 1455, and the Chepman Aisle was complete by 1513. Collegiate status, finally granted in 1466 after earlier unsuccessful petitions, increased the church’s clergy and liturgical functions. The present irregularity is therefore historical evidence: differences in bay width, wall alignment and roof form record the ambitions of successive communities rather than defective planning.

Reformation, division and civic conflict

John Knox became minister in 1559, and the following year the Scottish Reformation ended St Giles’ long Catholic use. Images and fittings were removed, and the interior was adapted for preaching and Reformed worship. Over time partitions divided the large medieval volume into separate congregations and civic rooms. That history explains why later restorers encountered not an untouched medieval interior but a building repeatedly adjusted to changing patterns of worship and municipal need.

Charles I briefly made St Giles’ a cathedral in 1633. His attempt to impose a new prayer book in 1637 provoked unrest. The famous story that Jenny Geddes threw a stool at the minister belongs to the building’s enduring tradition; the broader conflict over worship is documented, but the individual gesture should be presented as tradition rather than certain eyewitness fact. The crown spire was rebuilt by John Mylne in 1648.

Nineteenth-century reconstruction

Burn’s work of 1829–33 gave St Giles’ a more regular external envelope. He recased most of the walls, heightened the nave arcade, added a clerestory and removed south-west chapels. Later in the century William Chambers promoted another restoration intended to recover a single great church suitable for national ceremony. Work associated with William Hay and George Henderson in 1870–83 removed many internal divisions and introduced new north and west doors, a north-transept screen and furnishings including John Rhind’s pulpit and font.

These campaigns preserved St Giles’ but also changed how its medieval fabric is read. The interior’s apparent unity is largely a nineteenth-century achievement, while clustered piers, uneven bays and surviving chapels still disclose the earlier church. Most stained glass dates from the nineteenth century, including extensive work by James Ballantine and Sons between 1847 and 1894.

The Thistle Chapel

Robert Lorimer’s Thistle Chapel, completed in 1910 and brought into use for the Order of the Thistle in 1911, is a concentrated Arts and Crafts interpretation of late Gothic design. Tall, narrow proportions and a small polygonal end give it an independent presence beside the older kirk. Inside, carved stalls rise into elaborate canopies crowded with heraldry, angels, animals, foliage and deliberately Scottish detail.

The woodwork is the principal spectacle, but the chapel is a collaboration of crafts: Thomas Hadden supplied wrought ironwork, while Louis Davis produced heraldic stained glass to Lorimer’s designs. It is a twentieth-century addition rather than a survival from the Middle Ages, yet its workmanship and ceremonial purpose make it one of the building’s most significant spaces.

Memory, music and continuing use

St Giles’ contains an unusually dense collection of monuments to prominent Scots, many from the nineteenth century. Later interventions continue that tradition: Leifur Breidfjörd’s Robert Burns window was installed in 1985, and the present Rieger organ, with an Austrian-oak case designed by Douglas Laird, followed in 1992. These are not incidental furnishings; they show the kirk continuing to commission art and shape national memory.

The building remains an active Church of Scotland congregation as well as a place of music, tourism and state or civic ceremony. Its common title “cathedral” is historical and customary: today it is Presbyterian and not the seat of a bishop.

Why it matters

St Giles’ connects Edinburgh’s medieval burgh, Reformation history, municipal government and national ceremony in a single building. Architecturally, its importance lies as much in visible change as in survival. Medieval growth, post-Reformation subdivision, Victorian reconstruction and Arts and Crafts enrichment can all be read in its fabric.

What to notice

• The crown spire: eight stone flying buttresses rise from the tower to support the open crown and finial.
• The difference between the central tower’s masonry and Burn’s smoother nineteenth-century ashlar facing around it.
• Variations in bay width, pier form and roofline that reveal successive medieval additions.
• John Rhind’s nineteenth-century pulpit and font, and the predominantly Victorian stained glass.
• The Thistle Chapel’s carved stall canopies, ceiling bosses, heraldic glass and wrought iron.
• The modern Burns window and the Rieger organ as part of the building’s continuing artistic history.

Setting, visiting and access

The kirk stands in Parliament Square, closely enclosed by former law-court and civic buildings. Its south side faces the square and Mercat Cross; its north side addresses the movement and noise of the Royal Mile. This urban compression makes the crown spire more important: it announces the building where long views of the walls are difficult.

St Giles’ is both a working church and a busy visitor attraction. Services, ceremonies and events take priority. The church currently offers a digital guide in several languages and a Saturday morning Quiet Hour intended to reduce sensory stimulation. Opening arrangements, admission guidance, photography rules and physical access should be checked on the official visitor page before travelling.

Timeline

1. 1124 The cathedral’s official history dates David I’s foundation to this year; Historic Environment Scotland describes a probable mid-twelfth-century first church.
2. 1385 onward Rebuilding after an English raid creates much of the surviving late-medieval core.
3. 1401–10 The Albany Aisle is built.
4. 1455–1513 Further civic and private chapels, including the Preston and Chepman aisles, enlarge the church.
5. 1466 St Giles’ becomes a collegiate church.
6. 1559–60 John Knox becomes minister and Reformed worship replaces Catholic use.
7. 1633–37 St Giles’ briefly receives cathedral status; the prayer-book crisis follows.
8. 1648 John Mylne rebuilds the crown spire.
9. 1829–33 William Burn recases and substantially reconstructs the church.
10. 1870–83 William Hay and George Henderson restore the interior and introduce major fittings.
11. 1910–11 Lorimer’s Thistle Chapel is completed and opened for the Order of the Thistle.
12. Present Worship, music, visitors and national ceremonies continue.

What we know — and what remains uncertain

The sequence of major campaigns is well established, but the survival of fabric from the first Romanesque church and the dating of individual medieval parts remain subjects for specialist interpretation. The official church history gives 1124 as the foundation date, while the designation uses the more cautious “probably” for a mid-twelfth-century beginning. Popular traditions, especially the Jenny Geddes stool story and later stories attached to particular objects, should not be confused with securely documented fabric history.

Sources & further reading

• Historic Environment Scotland: St Giles’ Cathedral, LB27381 — Designation, exact grid reference, medieval phases, external and internal fabric, later architects and statement of special interest.
• St Giles’ Cathedral: history — Official institutional chronology, Reformation history, nineteenth-century restoration and modern additions.
• St Giles’ Cathedral: visitor information — Current worship, visiting, digital-guide and Quiet Hour information.