The Queen’s coffin will travel over 100 miles on Sunday through the Scottish Highlands towards Edinburgh, with thousands of people expected to pack the streets to watch it pass before it goes on public view.
The late monarch will lie in state at St Giles Cathedral on Edinburgh’s High Street for 24 hours from 5pm on Monday.
Members of the royal family, including King Charles, will stand beside the coffin from 7.20pm in a tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes.
JOURNEY BEGINS AT 10AM SUNDAY
The hearse set off from Balmoral Castle at 10am in a convoy of cars before slowly making its way through the small villages of Ballater and Aboyne. Many in Ballater, a Victorian village in the heart of Deeside, will know the royal family from their summers spent at Balmoral.
The Queen was known to meet walkers in the Cairngorms and local Ballater tradesmen were invited to the annual Ghillies Ball, held at the castle, for a night of Scottish dancing.
MAIN POINTS ON SCOTTISH ROUTE
From Ballater, the coffin will head to Aboyne, a village with a population of only a few thousand, which sits on the River Dee. The convoy will drive along a picturesque road, with heather moors on one side and the freshwater Loch Kinord on the other before arriving at Aboyne.
From there, the procession will continue on the A93, a road which follows the River Dee as it heads east to Aberdeen.
It is likely that the convoy will head to Banchory, another Aberdeenshire town, where the River Feugh meets the River Dee.
Aberdeen is a port city and home to almost 200,000 people so the reception for the procession is likely to be in its thousands once it arrives there later on Sunday morning at around 11am.
From there, the Queen’s coffin will be driven south through Stonehaven, a pretty harbour town on the north-east coast, and on to Dundee, Scotland’s fourth-largest city at around 2pm.
EDINBURGH IS FINAL DESTINATION ON SUNDAY
It is then thought that the coffin will be driven to Perth before it arrives finally in Edinburgh.
The coffin is expected to finish its journey on Sunday when it arrives in the capital at around 4pm.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said: “The Queen’s coffin currently rests in the ballroom at Balmoral castle. Her Majesty’s coffin will travel to Edinburgh tomorrow, Sunday 11th September, by road, to arrive at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where it will rest in the Throne room until the afternoon of Monday 12th September.”
COFFIN HEADS TO LONDON
On Monday afternoon, the coffin will be taken from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles’ Cathedral, on the Royal Mile, where the Queen will lie at rest for a day to allow the people of Scotland to pay their respects. On Tuesday, it will be flown to London, accompanied by Princess Anne.
Finally, it will be transported from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster on September 14, where it will lie in state until the morning of the funeral.
