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Stained glass from Winchester Cathedral - circa 1490 at the Abbey Church, Caboolture, Qld

Heading north from Brisbane on the Pacific Highway taking the Caboolture Bribie Island Road exit, the first stop on the way to Bribie Island should be the Abbey Museum of Art and Archeology.

 

The museum’s history is a fascinating story in itself, with dedicated historian and Anglican clergyman Reverend John S M Ward collecting a wealth of artifacts and artworks spanning the globe and the history of man.

 

Rev Ward ended up in Caboolture from England via Greece indirectly, establishing The Abbey, finding a permanent home for his collection and adding to it.

 

Located between Caboolture and Bribie Island, the facility contains collections of prehistoric bone and stone artefacts, metalwork, ceramics, glass, sculpture, leather, wood carvings, gemstones, lacquer, paper, prints and paintings spanning the last 500,000 years of human history and is home to the impressive Abbey Medieval Festival annually.

 

 

Beyond the museum is the Abbey Church with its stunning and priceless collection of stained glass preserved for the ages. Set in beautiful gardens, it includes the largest corpus of European medieval and renaissance stained glass in Australia.

 

 

These include priceless fragments from a series of windows in the Lady Chapel of Winchester Cathedral, possibly commissioned in about 1490. (Stained glass tours by appointment)

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Uploaded on June 18, 2010
Taken on May 27, 2010