The line from the doors of St Giles’ Cathedral is estimated to stretch for at least a mile.
Image source, Getty ImagesAbout 20,000 people are waiting in a mile-long queue to file past the Queen’s coffin in Edinburgh, according to police estimates.
Ex-servicemen and women, families and new friends are among those who have travelled across the country to pay their respects.
They began filing into St Giles’ Cathedral at about 17:30.
Earlier, thousands watched King Charles III follow his mother’s coffin in a procession along the Royal Mile.
Gillian and Michael Hainsworth, from Garforth in Yorkshire, waited seven hours before they entered the cathedral.
“It was just so emotional,” said Gillian. “It is hard to explain. It comes over you all of a sudden.”
“You are only a couple of metres away from the coffin,” Michael added. “You can linger there for a bit and say a prayer.”
Rodney Matthews, a retired Baptist minister and member of Old Saint Paul’s, a Scottish Episcopal Church in the heart of Edinburgh, said the moment was “just very moving”.
“You were able to move very slowly through, there was no rush at all,” he said. “There’s a moment where you can actually stand there and take it all in, the dignity of the whole place.
“It was very well done, very well organised once you go through security and get that feeling of space.”
Mr Matthews was awarded an MBE for his work on a millennium project about pilgrims crossing Scotland.
“The Queen was very gracious when I met her, and I wanted to acknowledge her in the same way,” he added.
Betty and Thomas Bremner watched the coffin being driven along the M90 on Sunday before travelling to Edinburgh with granddaughter, Zara, on Monday.
The family, from Kennoway in Fife, felt it was their duty pay their last respects in the cathedral.
“It was a privilege. It was serene, beautiful, you weren’t rushed at all. It was just so peaceful, I’m glad I came, really glad I came,” Mrs Bremner said.
They waited six hours to see the coffin. But the grandmother said: “I would have stood all night, if I had to.”
Her husband said he found it surprisingly emotional.
“It was very, very sad actually. I didn’t think I would shed a tear but it got to me in the end when I was walking through St Giles.”
Mourners had to collect a wristband at the Meadows park before joining the queue to get into the cathedral.
George Higgins and Sheila Purvis, both ex-services, were first in line for the wristband on Monday morning.
Mr Higgins, who served with the Royal Scots in Northern Ireland and the first Gulf War, arrived at the front of the queue at 06:45 BST.
“I was on night shift last night and I’m going to be on night shift again tonight again, so I’m going to be up for 40 hours.
“But the way I look at it is, Her Majesty gave 70 years of service to us and to the country, at least I can give her 40 hours of mine.”
Ms Purvis, who was in the Women’s Royal Army Corps, said: “The Queen was our boss.
“It’s comforting to know that she died in Scotland, and not England, so that we can show our respects. We wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise.”
Image source, Getty Images
By late afternoon the queue to get into the cathedral stretched back through George Square, Potterow, Chambers Street and George IV Bridge.
People will be able to walk past the Queen’s coffin until 15:00 on Tuesday.
Lindsay Forbes travelled to Edinburgh from Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, to see the Queen’s coffin.
“My wife and I both felt this was part of history and we want to be part of it and pay our respects,” he said.
While in the queue for a wristband, he struck up conversation with Steve Gilman, from north Fife.
“I’m very much a monarchist, very much a unionist, and I wanted to pay my respects,” he said. “I saw the Queen go past us in Dundee yesterday and came down this morning.”
Both men hold King Charles III in high regard.
Mr Forbes said he had met him three times during visits to south-west Scotland and he found him to be “extremely caring”.
“I first came across him when he visited the Abbeyfield Society [care] home and it was perfectly clear that his time for elderly people was not going to be interrupted by a timetable for the rest of the day.
“He gave loads of time to the people that he sat down and talked to in this care home and I was very impressed by that.”
Meanwhile, Mr Gilman said he was awarded an OBE at Buckingham Palace by the King.
“I think he’s a very dignified, very calm man and has been training for this role all his life. While I’m incredibly sorry that the Queen has passed, I think King Charles is the right guy to see us through this difficult time.”
