The photograph above shows a clever conceit used by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The vaulting at the east end gives the effect of a graceful apse above the East Window, though the building is in fact rectangular. The floor is of Sicilian marble and encaustic tiles and contains images of fish, gryphons, birds, lions and deers. The Altar Cross has the Byzantine feature called crux in cruce, namely one cross superimposed upon another. The stones are Scottish topaz or Cairngorms and at the foot of the Cross are wheat and grapes. The Reredos was designed by J. Oldrid Scott and the central panel is of the finest white Carrara marble with pillars of porphyry and Verona marble. The Statues in the niches are of St Margaret of Scotland and St Columba.

The nave and aisles of the cathedral are dark and sombre, mostly lit by articifical light. The interior is generally more pleasing than the exterior, the polychromy of the decoration and ironwork relieving the gloom of the sandstone.

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