Queen’s coffin expected to lie in rest at Edinburgh cathedral for 24 hours

People will be able to pay their respects to the Queen as the monarch’s coffin is expected to lie in rest for 24 hours at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.

It is expected that members of the public will be allowed in to the church to file past the coffin when it resides there in about three days’ time.

The historic cathedral is situated on the city’s Royal Mile, halfway between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

After news of the Queen’s death was announced on Thursday, Reverend Calum MacLeod, minister of the cathedral, paid tribute to such a “strong and faithful servant”.

In a message on the cathedral’s website, he said: “With the whole nation, we at St. Giles’ Cathedral mourn the death of HM The Queen, strong and faithful servant to the UK and Commonwealth for so many years.

“We send our heartfelt condolences to the Royal Family.”

Members of the royal family will be expected in the coming days to hold a poignant vigil around the Queen’s coffin in St Giles.

A service will be held in the cathedral and the Queen’s children are expected to stage a vigil around the Queen’s coffin – known as the Vigil of the Princes – while it lies in there.

The cathedral was founded in about 1124, either by King Alexander I, who died that year, or by his brother King David I, who succeeded him, according to the official website.

St Giles, a popular medieval saint, is patron saint of lepers, nursing mothers and the lame.

In 1985, a stained-glass window was installed above the entrance way, as a memorial to famous Scot Robert Burns.

Other features include The Holy Table, which was dedicated at a Service of Thanksgiving in 2011, in the presence of The Princess Royal.

There are a number of memorials in the cathedral, with the earliest surviving monuments dating from the 1840s, and the most recent marking the 500th anniversary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2005.

More than a third are war memorials to Scottish regiments and those who died during campaigns in India and the Sudan, the Boer War and both World Wars, the website states.

St Giles’ Cathedral is a registered Scottish charity.