Edinburgh City Part 3: St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral

A Cathedral for a Sunday

Old residential style buildings are visible on the right.

I was actually on my way to take a short-cut through a shopping mall, being lead by K. to the castle, and insisted we stop so I could photograph some of the architecture around the road junction as I could see this Cathedral, something that looked like a very fancy Gothic Revival church in a late Gothic, almost Tudor style, converted into a restaurant called the Glass Box by the use of much modern glass and steel, and another church with towers done as open lanterns (which I took a photograph of that as at the end of this entry), and a few other interesting things.

Rock doves, I think, perched on an artificial cliff...

Edinburgh city has an over-abundance of glorious architecture. I tried to take as many photographs as I could, but I simply did not have time to photograph everything I saw that was interesting. Much of the beautiful architecture is Gothic and Gothic Revival - my two favourite styles, especially in their more elaborate variations. This is not the fanciest building in Edinburgh by any means, but it was fancy enough to catch my attention - as were several in the immediate vicinity. I will have to go back there and take more photographs because with cars and pedestrians and buses and lorries all getting between me and good photographs the last time, a trip on a quieter day is in order. I do hope to go back to Edinburgh because I only had chance to explore a small fraction of the city, and I didn't get to go on any ghost tours, nor visit the dungeons, nor visit any cemeteries or necropoli (and most cities for the living have their cities for the dead). 

Some lovely Gothic grandeur for an entrance. 

The sign at the right of the entrance relates some of this building's history (although with photographs taken at that distance it is quite unreadable here) and says, among many other things, that it was built in 1814 and designed by the architect James Gillespie Graham, and that it had originally been surrounded by residential buildings to keep it tucked away from anti-Catholic vandals, rather than the being in broad view at a busy road junction as it is now. I guess trying to remain hidden to a degree is why it has no tall spire or tower. I did not go into the Cathedral, being an apostate that left Christianity for Neo-Paganism, and feeling somewhat awkward actually in places of Christian worship. I always feel like however beautiful it is, it is sacred to someone else's God, and I don't belong there. 

Lovely lantern towers on a church I spotted across the road
 from the cathedral. Not sure which church, though.

Edinburgh has so many beautiful buildings that I could probably stay there a month and not photograph all of them. I hope my readers don't mind how much I am posting in the way of architectural photography. October is going to be a picture-heavy month, and Gothic and Gothic Revival architecture is going to feature quite prominently. 

One of the fascinating things about cities is how much history every single building and square foot of land has - even newer buildings are often built over older buildings, and in some places you get catacombs as buildings are built over the cellars and sub-basements in increasing levels, with the newest buildings not always having access to their own cellars, I would not be surprised if this is not the case in some parts of Edinburgh; I certainly went to enough buildings where because of topography and various extensions, what is ground floor in one place would be basement to another in the same building - "upper ground floor" and "lower ground floor" being common stops on lifts! I know London has 'lost' underground buildings, some being branches now disconnected of the London Underground Railway, some of them cellars detached from their parent buildings, and some of them parts of old sewerage and drainage systems, and Paris is famous for its catacombs, but I don't know about Edinburgh. If any Edinburgh readers can shed light on this (pardon the pun) then I would be very interested.