Brisbane, QLD - St John's Anglican Cathedral

History and Architecture:

St John's Cathedral is unique in Australia as the completion of the building design was achieved through collaboration between clergy, stonemasons and architects over a period of almost 100 years, as with Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals in the Middle Ages and, more recently, 20th-century cathedrals such as Liverpool Cathedral in England.

In April 1889, John Loughborough Pearson's plans for the cathedral were approved for the original site bounded by George, Elizabeth and William Streets.

The Church is in cruciform form with a wide nave, double aisles, apse and ambulatory, short transepts about halfway along the length of the building and an apsidal side chapel on the north. The west front had towers close to the end of the nave. The upper part of the west wall was supported by a relieving arch, which continued the line of the interior cross arches. The towers had massive buttresses. Their strong vertical lines carried on into corner turrets set before pyramidal spires.

A plaque reads, " A.M.D.G. This stone commemorates with Thankfulness to Almighty God the State Governorship of Sir Henry Abel Smith KCMG, KCVO, DSO, LLD. 1958 - 1966 Placed by him on 6yh March 1966. His last Sunday in Queensland as Governor of the Stare".