No. 1154 - Hobart - St Mary's Cathedral Crypt

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In 2021 I had an opportunity to view and photograph the crypt beneath St Mary’s Cathedral Centre, a 4 storey extension connected to the western side of the Cathedral, which was completed 2011. Beneath the ground floor lobby of the centre a crypt was built to receive and preserve the remains of all the Cathedral’s archbishops.

In 2016 the first bishops to be interred in the crypt were Archbishops Tweedy, Guilford Young and D’Arcy. The remains of the first Bishop of Hobart, Robert William Willson, was interred in the crypt in 2017 after being repatriated from Nottingham in England.

In September 2021 the remains of Archbishops Daniel Murphy, Patrick Delany, William Barry, William Hayden as well as the pioneer priest, Fr Philip Conolly, were exhumed from beneath the floor of the North Transept of the Cathedral. Their reinterment took place on 8 December 2021 following a Mass with the rite of interment.

The remains of eight of the nine previous bishops of Hobart are now interred in the Cathedral crypt. Absent are the remains of Archbishop Justin Simonds who was appointed to the Melbourne Archdiocese and laid to rest under St Patrick’s Cathedral.

The crypt is centred around an ornate wooden altar covered with a red cloth with the inscription "Sanctus" written in triplicate. The walls of the crypt hold the remains of the former archbishops, who are placed in the order which they served the church.




 





The Cathedral Centre - source: Circa Architecture Hobart



Artist: Dowling, William Paul, 1824-1877


The domed timber ceiling of the Cathedral Centre: https://www.circaarchitecture.com.au/stmarys-cathedral


Sources and links of interest:

https://hobart.catholic.org.au/2021/12/14/bishops-of-hobart-laid-to-rest-in-st-marys-crypt/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-17/bishop-robert-william-willson-hobart-crypt-ready/8276300
https://www.circaarchitecture.com.au/stmarys-cathedral
https://www.circaarchitecture.com.au/public-and-cultural

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