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.

Arches, Tracery and Details

❝Architecture on a Saturday?

What is this heresy? 

Photographs are for Fridays!❞

<evil villain> 

You all thought you'd escaped Photographic Friday's usual bunch of architecture pictures, didn't you? You thought that I'd be content with Raven's lovely pictures of me (lovely because he's a good photographer, not because I'm a lovely model) and that there would be no spires, steeples, turrets, arches, or other architectural photographs of any kind, and that you were safe from my photographic obsession with buildings. 

Wrong!

Bwahahahahaha!

 </evil villain>

Out in the sunshine with a camera and a corset.
Photograph by Suzy_Bugs

Now, over the last week or so, I have not actually been out to photograph buildings, but spending a lot of time indoors. This is for two practical reasons. The first is that I physically am not up to walking around a lot. Last Thursday (yep, actually last Thursday) it was really rather hot out, and I fainted in the heat, landed awkwardly, bruised my hip, sprained my ankle and bruised my knee badly. Normally I would say this is minor damage and carry on as per usual, but I work on my feet and cannot afford to take days sick. I made the mistake of trying to carry on as per normal, with Roller Derby on Monday night and walking my daily 14 to 15 mile commute on the Tuesday, but by Tuesday evening my ankle was so sore that I was using my cane and not shuffling far from the sofa! As such, I thought it best to avoid too much unnecessary walking, so my photographic activities have been curtailed. The second reason is that I have been focusing my efforts on illustrations for a book. This is paid work, valuable to me, so it must take priority. 

I didn't have to digitally straighten this one!

That said, I did dig out a few pictures from a previous trip. These are all (I think all) of St. Mary's Catholic church on Huntly Street, in Inverness, on the opposite side of the river from the churches I usually photograph. It is an unusual church building, and a very beautiful and ornate one. From the website, I gather it has beautiful stained glass windows, including some wonderful modern pieces commemorating local historical figures and ties with the Polish community in Inverness, but I do not want to be disrespectful by photographing inside the church, especially as I am not Catholic (even if I once was, maybe because I once was.). 

Dramatic skies ahoy!

Trying to get a half decent angle that takes in a large portion of the building was a real challenge - one I think may best be answered from the other side of the river! The picture above is from an angle suggested by Raven, as he was being a very helpful photography coach for me.  The sky was mostly a dull sort of cloudy that day (hence why the direct photograph has such a dull sky above it) but it had a moment of drama, and I took the opportunity. This is my favourite photograph from this little expedition, and in my uneducated opinion, the best. 

Open tracery

The front of the building is designed to maximise grandeur, with the church recessed from street level and connected to the equally ornate ecclesiastical buildings either side with angled walls that create a bit of false perspective and also draw the visitor in towards the church door. It does not appear, in terms of size, to compete with the Protestant churches of various denominations on the opposite side (Free Church, Church of Scotland, etc.)  although I do not know how far back it goes, and it does not posses a tall and imposing steeple. It does, however, manage to cram as much ornament as physically possible into a relatively compact space. It is a Victorian Gothic Revival building in a city full of Victorian Gothic Revival buildings, and I do wonder if the architects involved got a bit competitive. 

Fleur de Lis design. 

Even the floor tiles are fancy! This tile is made with two different clays, rather than being painted, a terracotta red for the design on a creamy-coloured background. Tiles have been produced in this manner and in similar designs for hundreds of years - the Victorians didn't just emulate their Medieval inspiration, the reproduced its craftsmanship. Now, where can I get some of these for my hall-way... 

The cement render behind the gate is in pretty ruin.

I want some of my pictures to have a sense of narrative, a sense that they are part of a story. I like taking pictures that have doorways, paths, arches, passageways - things that give a sense of how the building is something that can be walked through, not just detail on a flat plane, and also I want there to be a bit of mystery. I'd like people to wonder, as I do, what lies behind the gates, around the columns and down the passageways. Whenever I played games like Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed or Prince of Persia, it was always exploring the nooks, clambering on buildings and generally being curious that intrigued me, more so sometimes than finishing the level! I have this sort of attitude towards real life, except with the limitation that there are places I am not allowed to go and apparently clambering on the buildings is frowned upon (not that this stopped me at boarding school...). 

I have a feeling this is part of another church.

Sometimes it's just the shapes, the patterns, the textures, things less directly 'building' that catch my eye. Hopefully, as my legs (especially that ankle!) recover, I shall be out and about taking more pictures. Maybe there will even be variety as I find something other than buildings and monuments to photograph. Either that or I will eventually produce a comprehensive guide to twiddly buildings in the Highlands. I am hoping to get some castle photos taken; Cawdor Castle, Inverness Castle, Brodie Castle, etc. etc. Lots of castles around here, including the fabulous Eilean Donan Castle (my correspondents will recognise that one from the multitude of postcards I send), so it that sort of project could keep me occupied for a while. 

Architecture, Statuary and Suchlike

I have been into Inverness taking photographs of buildings, details and in graveyards again.  As far as photography goes it is buildings, monuments and similar things that I prefer taking pictures of. I have a fondness for architecture stemming to my teenage years, having once aspired to being an architect. To me, my photographs are a form of appreciation of the buildings I admire. Inanimate objects that won't run away when I point a camera at them also provide good practice material. 

Suzy has lent me a nice Canon camera with proper manual settings to play with, but it's big and heavy, not weatherproof and I'm still not very confident using it, so for this trip I took my little pocket point-and-shoot camera as it fits in my handbag and I am not afraid to take it out in the rain. I really want to get more confident using the proper camera because when I have taken pictures with it, they are so much better than with the point-and-shoot because I can control the variables to favour the results I am aiming for, rather than have to put up with the automated choices that the point-and-shoot assumes are what I want (and rarely are). 

Pay attention to that storm...

As per usual I began my trip at the Old High Church, on Church St. (aptly named, it has several churches) and took pictures there. Whenever I go there I spot something else I want  to photograph that I did not spot on the previous occasion. Today it was the lamp-post at the top of the ridge overlooking the river that caught my eye. Behind it was a moody sky, and I wanted to capture that. That is indeed a typical Scottish summer sky; full of rain and thunder. I'm sure Noah accidentally wandered up here when he had to build that ark... 

Slightly less rainy.

I find dramatic rain-laden clouds the most interesting backgrounds, second only to sunsets. There is something fascinating about the contrast of the perpetually changing natural beauty of the weather and the static beauty of human artifice. In this picture I concentrated on the thick glass of the lantern portion and the way the clouds are distorted in it. Most of my pictures on this blog are set to black and white to fit the aesthetic of the blog, but here the colours have been kept as it conveys the atmosphere better with the colours retained, and the image is fairly grey anyway.

Grassy

Sometimes it is the smaller things I notice, such as these grass seeds by a grave, where the monument has sheltered the grass from the strimmer and it has grown long. Next time I try this I will try and angle myself so that the background is all church and graves as the grass was well-lit and the composition would have been better if it was the grass with its highlights against the darker blurred stone. There are all sorts of interesting natural things in graveyards. I tried taking a photograph of a spider in the stone folds of a monumental draped urn, but it scurried off at my invasion of its privacy. 

Carved on a headstone.

The above image is a detail from a headstone. I tend to shy away from photographing headstones and actual grave markers in their entirety as to me they are personal things erected by family as memorials, but sometimes I photograph statuary and small details, trying to avoid the names and dates upon the stones. This stone is actually relatively old, 19thC in fact, but the carved vegetative design is still crisp, the narrow stems and the indentations in the flower still clearly visible and relatively unweathered despite the exposed position of the graveyard. 


I had a lot of fun wandering around the city and crossed the bridge to look for more buildings to and locations, in search of some variety. Inverness is a really interesting city, there are plenty of things to photograph. I have to explore  more of the Northern bank of the river and the city beyond.

Eden Court Theatre

It is not only Gothic Revival and other historic buildings that I enjoy photographing. This is Eden Court, a rather modern building. Eden Court was opened in April 1976. At the time, the design was strikingly modern, and to this day it is still striking and feels decidedly contemporary. It is a very angular building, but with interesting geometry - it is full of diagonals and not at all box-like. It is clad with a variety of textures and has a large amount of glass, making the building reasonably light indoors even with the notoriously dingy Scottish weather. When I first visited, I assumed the building was built in the last 10 years, not over 40 years ago. Eden Court is the only large performance venue in the region, with a very good variety of performances and exhibitions to attend. The building was designed by architects Law & Dunbar-Nasmith to house all types of performing arts from opera to drama and films (it is also a cinema and even shows art-house movies) to things like the HiEx comic convention.

Railings on an exterior stairwell.

Eden Court is a very interesting building. I think its strong lines, angular design and interesting textures, combined with a lot of interesting dark greys make it an interesting building for this blog, even if it is not Gothic, Perpendicular or Gothic Revival. Mind you, 20thC architecture has its links to the Gothic subculture too - after all, one of the seminal Goth bands is called 'Bauhaus'. Today I only took a few photographs of Eden Court, but I feel that it is one of these buildings that I will keep coming back to - expect to see more of it here on this blog. 

Architecture reflected in architecture

Sometimes the old and the new meet in clear contrast, such as the reflection of this Gothic Revival townhouse (I don't think it was built as a hotel or other non-residential building) caught in the polished surface of part of the cladding of Eden Court theatre, a building that, as you can see from previous photographs, is thoroughly modern. It is these sorts of little things that make me smile. Life is full of moments of unexpected beauty. 

Arch

I look for interesting architectural details wherever I go. This is an upper-floor arch between two curved turrets (the sort that are really stacked bay windows than actual turrets - towers, maybe) which have lovely "fantasy castle" conical roofs. This is part of the facade of the Palace Hotel, on the riverfront in central Inverness, across the bridge from most of the churches I photograph, on the road to the Cathedral and Eden Court. 

Arrogant Angel

Above is a rather arrogant looking angel I found nestled in a the concave nook of a corner. Its expression seems so haughty and condescending - not exactly suitable for an angel! I thought the attention to detail on the folds of its robes, the curls of its hair and the feathers of its wings were really quite exacting, so I wonder if the expression was the result of the mason making some sort of joke, and if the angel was modelled on a real person who exhibited such traits. It definitely seems to be looking down its nose at the humans walking around below it. 

Inverness has a truly vast cemetery at Tomnahurich. It has been used for centuries. I stayed over an hour there, on my first visit and only explored a small fraction of the graveyard. It is very leafy, and a good section of it on the hill is actually woodland. It has a variety of grave markers and monuments from the local Victorian-era style of grave-markers, to rather ornate graves, especially at the graves of families that had immigrated from Southern Europe, especially Italy. 

Hope, Faith and the Immortal Soul

The above figure is from a Victorian era grave, it is placed above the actual marker. The figure is an allegory of Hope, and the anchor represents the following passage from the Bible: "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." (Hebrews 6:19), the five-pointed star on her brow is representative of the soul, and the hand across the heart a symbol of faith. The anchor itself echoes the cross with wreath in its design. There are actually quite a few figurative monuments and allegorical and religious statuary. 

Intriguing Statuary

This is part of a fabulous statue in a part of the cemetery where many Italian immigrant families are buried. It really intrigued me because I had never seen such a figure at a grave before. It is young woman down on one knee, barefoot in Neoclassical robes (and a Neoclassical style), with a scallop shaped bowl containing a cross with the iota-eta-sigma monogram resting at an angle in the bowl. Not only had I never seen such a statue at a grave, I had never seen such a statue at all. It would have been so useful had I taken a full-length picture of the statue rather than this bust. I asked Magdalena of ::Goth In Plain Sight:: who is rather knowledgeable in Christian iconography about it. It is a pilgrim to the shrine of Sant Iago. (Saint James.) There is a big shrine to him in Spain. The person buried there probably made the pilgrimage, or had some connection to the shrine. Maybe they were Spanish rather than Italian and that the area of the cemetery is bonded by common Catholicism rather than common location.