Interior-general view of Thistle Chapel

Description Interior-general view of Thistle Chapel

Date 1911 to 1912

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 21475

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies B 64782, SC 717158

Scope and Content Sovereign's Stall, Thistle Chapel, St Giles' Cathedral, High Street, Edinburgh The Thistle Chapel, the most ornate building of its kind to be erected in Scotland since the Middle Ages, was designed by the architect, Sir Robert Lorimer, and built in 1909-11at St Giles' Cathedral as the private chapel for the Knights of the Thistle, the most ancient Order of Chivalry in Scotland. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the interior c.1912. The Sovereign's stall, the largest of all the stalls in the chapel, is set centrally on a dais against the west wall. Carved in oak in a Gothic style by the wood carvers, William & Alexander Clow, its tall, spiky canopy, richly decorated with pinnacles and gablets, stretches upwards, towering above those of the royal stalls on either side. The front of the canopy is carved with the figure of St Margaret teaching children flanked by St Columba (right) and St Kentigern (left). The desk front bears the royal arms of Scotland. The chapel provides a place where the reigning British monarch and the 16 Scottish Knights of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle may meet in private, and where investitures can be held. It was inaugurated on 19th July 1911 by King George V who used the occasion to invest two new knights, the Earl of Mar and Kellie, and Lord Reay. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Glass

External Reference Box 62

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