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Broome Cape Leveque Beagle Bay Mission Church 1917
Plans for Sacred Heart church were drawn up by Fr Thomas Bachmair (Pallottine Order) some time prior to 1908. At that time the construction was beyond the means of the Beagle Bay Mission Community.
Work finally began on the church in 1915 during a time when the German Pallottine priests and brothers were confined to Beagle Bay Mission due to war-time restrictions on their movements.
Mary Durack, a Kimberley pioneer and writer, describes the scene at Beagle Bay:
The design, a combined effort that was finally passed as practical, was shown to the mission people as something that was to belong to them and of which they could be proud. Perhaps to please the missionaries in their time of trial they began the task with at least a show of interest but, as the building took shape, they worked with genuine enthusiasm and unprecedented constancy. Day after day parties set off into the bush or to the coast to cut timber, cart sand, dig clay and gather tons of broken shells for lime. As the timber structure mounted, 60,000 double clay bricks were shaped and baked in stone kilns and thousands of live shells, mother of pearl and many other varieties from small cockles, cones and trochus to giant clams and bailers for holy water fonts were gathered in from a wide range of coastal waters and tidal reefs. (The Rock and the Sand. London, Constable, 1969. Page198)
The interior of the church is decorated with shells, including mother of pearl, cowries, volutes and olives. While the mother of pearl has been used to decorate the main altar, the side altars are inlaid with opercula, a rare stone taken from shellfish. Some of the decoration formed the tribal symbols of the Njul Njul, the Nimanborr and the Bard people of the area while others formed the lamb, the fish and shepherd’s crook of the Christian faith.
On 15 August 1918, on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, the Sacred Heart Church was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Fr Creagh, the Apostolic Administrator of the Kimberley Vicariate.
Broome Cape Leveque Beagle Bay Mission Church 1917
Plans for Sacred Heart church were drawn up by Fr Thomas Bachmair (Pallottine Order) some time prior to 1908. At that time the construction was beyond the means of the Beagle Bay Mission Community.
Work finally began on the church in 1915 during a time when the German Pallottine priests and brothers were confined to Beagle Bay Mission due to war-time restrictions on their movements.
Mary Durack, a Kimberley pioneer and writer, describes the scene at Beagle Bay:
The design, a combined effort that was finally passed as practical, was shown to the mission people as something that was to belong to them and of which they could be proud. Perhaps to please the missionaries in their time of trial they began the task with at least a show of interest but, as the building took shape, they worked with genuine enthusiasm and unprecedented constancy. Day after day parties set off into the bush or to the coast to cut timber, cart sand, dig clay and gather tons of broken shells for lime. As the timber structure mounted, 60,000 double clay bricks were shaped and baked in stone kilns and thousands of live shells, mother of pearl and many other varieties from small cockles, cones and trochus to giant clams and bailers for holy water fonts were gathered in from a wide range of coastal waters and tidal reefs. (The Rock and the Sand. London, Constable, 1969. Page198)
The interior of the church is decorated with shells, including mother of pearl, cowries, volutes and olives. While the mother of pearl has been used to decorate the main altar, the side altars are inlaid with opercula, a rare stone taken from shellfish. Some of the decoration formed the tribal symbols of the Njul Njul, the Nimanborr and the Bard people of the area while others formed the lamb, the fish and shepherd’s crook of the Christian faith.
On 15 August 1918, on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, the Sacred Heart Church was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Fr Creagh, the Apostolic Administrator of the Kimberley Vicariate.