Glastonbury Abbey’s travelling kneecap comes home

By Laura Linham 6th Aug 2026

Local News by Laura Linham 1 hour ago

Glastonbury Abbey has put a medieval kneecap and floor tile fragment on display after the unlikely pair made their way back from Australia.

The objects were taken from Glastonbury Abbey by schoolboy George Box during a visit in the summer of 1956. Seventy years later, and after half a century on the other side of the world, they have been returned to the abbey's museum department.

The story began when George's widow contacted Glastonbury Abbey last year after his death. She was arranging to bring his ashes back to the UK to be scattered at Brent Knoll, where he had grown up, and also wanted to return two items he had taken as a child.

During his 1956 school trip, George saw a large archaeological excavation taking place at the abbey. With no one around, he picked up a piece of medieval floor tile and a piece of bone from an opened tomb.

The bone was a kneecap. It is not every day a museum gets one of those back in the post.

George never told anyone what he had done as a child. When he emigrated to Australia in the 1970s, the kneecap and tile went with him, and he later displayed them in a glass cabinet with fossils and other items linked to his lifelong interest in archaeology.

After he remarried in 2000, George told his wife the story. She felt the items should be returned to the abbey, and he agreed they could go back after his death.

Before then, he made a box for their journey home. The abbey says it was reminiscent of the medieval reliquaries once used to hold saints' bones and other sacred items.

The objects were returned this summer on the anniversary of George's passing. They are now back in the care of the Glastonbury Abbey museum department, with the abbey saying it is grateful for their return and for the story that came with them.

The abbey knows there was a dig in the north transept of the Abbey Church in the summer of 1956. Several abbots' tombs were opened in that area, some close to the remains of tiled floors.

That means the kneecap could belong to Abbot Amesbury, Abbot Petherton or Abbot John of Taunton. All three died in the 13th century and were buried in that part of the abbey.

The abbey says all three remain at rest in the area, several metres below ground. One of them, however, may have had a kneecap enjoy a far wider travel history than any medieval monk could have imagined.

Visitors can now see the kneecap and tile fragment in the abbey museum. The wider site, including the ruins, grounds and museum, can be explored through Glastonbury Abbey visitor information, with tickets available through abbey admission.

The return is one of those very Glastonbury stories: part archaeology, part confession, part family promise, and just odd enough to feel entirely at home among the abbey's long history.