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Report - St Joseph’s Catholic college july 2019

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Mr Budge

28DL Regular User
Regular User
the exploreSt Joseph’s college is probably one of my favourite and I steer sting explores to date.i have visited this place a few times in the day and night.these pictures are from my first explore here in the day back in April 2019.
So me and a couple of friends arrived here one weekday morning we scopes out the location and noticed there was at least 3 on site security gathered round a hut and one that enjoyed driving around in an old shape Vauxhall corsa, as secure this place looked we soon found an entrance and were in.we spent at least 4hours exploring this place taking in the architecture and getting lost in the maze of hallways it was clear to see nature had started to takeover some parts.
One bit of this place I won’t forgot is a small room (I’ve posted a video of this below) which had a metal door with a small slider on,this small room just had the remains of a single bed in which instantly made all of us present about the dark history surrounding this place involving young boys and a former priest.

the history: St Joseph’s college is a former Roman Catholic seminary in Lancashire England. The foundation of the large building was laid in April 1880 and college was opened in 1883. The buildings have since been deconsecrated.St Joseph's College was founded in 1880 by Bishop Bernard O'Reilly to be the Seminary serving the North West of England. On St. Joseph’s Day, 19 March 1880 Dr. O’Reilly blessed and laid the foundation stone of the new college
St Joseph's, usually referred to by its students simply as "Up Holland", was one of two main seminaries serving the north of England. Up Holland served the northwest and Ushaw college the northeast. For many years, each of these institutions housed both a junior (minor) and a senior (major) seminary. The junior seminaries provided a secondary education in a semi-monastic environment to boys aged 11–18 who wished to pursue the priesthood, while the senior seminaries trained adult candidates, mostly aged between 18 and 24, in philosophy and theology, preparing them for the priesthood. A detailed account of daily life in the junior seminary at Up Holland during the 1960s, Boys of the Cloth, was published in 2012.This also explores the reasons why the Church's traditional form of seminary training may have predisposed some priests to molest children, which was one of the key findings of a major investigation conducted on behalf of American bishops into the causes of the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church in the United States.
Although Up Holland flourished until the 1960s, the rapidly changing social climate in that decade led to a sharp drop in enrolment. In the early 1970s, the northern bishops decided to consolidate the activities of Up Holland and Ushaw; from 1972 all junior seminarians in the north attended Up Holland, and from 1975 all senior seminarians attended Ushaw.Even as the sole junior seminary for the north of England, however, Up Holland continued to suffer a decline in numbers, and by the 1980s it was no longer described as a traditional junior seminary but as a "boarding school for boys considering a vocation".
In 1986, the total number of students was down to 82, of whom only 54 were Church students, and it was no longer considered viable to educate them on the premises. From 1987, the remaining students continued to live at Up Holland but for classes attended St John Rigby College in nearby Orrell, an arrangement that continued until the last of these students left Up Holland in 1992.
In the meantime, following the move of the senior seminary to Ushaw, in 1976 the former Senior Seminary rooms had become the home of the Up Holland Northern Institute (UNI), with Father Kevin Kelly as its first Director. He was succeeded in 1980 by Father Vincent Nicole’s now Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Later, the College buildings were used more generally as a retreat and conference centre for the Archdiocese under the leadership of Monsignor John Devine. A short video tour of the College, derived from footage taken a few months before its closure as a conference centre, highlighting the functions played by different parts of the building during the seminary days, is available online.
The election of Partrick Kelly as Arch bishop of Liverpool in 1996 saw the controversial decision to close St Joseph's altogether, and the property was sold for development to Anglo International, who instructed AEW Architects for the conversion of the Grade 2 listed buildings into 92 apartments, with 220 new build "enabling" units. The major controversies of the decision were the ongoing financial viability of St Joseph's, which had just started to make a small surplus under Devine's management, and the sale and disposal of the art and artefacts in the college, much of which had been donated by various parishes and people of the Archdiocese, who were not offered their donations back.

dark history : A 'cruel sadistic' catholic priest who repeatedly raped a boy almost 40 years ago in a former Wigan seminary was jailed for 17 years. This is just a snippet of a report on this place explaining the dark past between a priest young boys if you would like to read the full article then here is the link.


Me and a group of other explorers last went here at night in November 2019 was a good night exploring much different in the night also a challenge navigating the maze of corridors whilst avoiding security spotting your torch light,since our last visit I’ve heard that the main entrance point has been sealed up and security has been ramped up quite a bit,will probably try again soon to see if the rumours are true as I’m sure there is still bits I’ve not seen a few hidden rooms maybe
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Calamity Jane

i see beauty in the unloved, places & things
Regular User
Always love this popping up. Such an amazing building. Dont think Ive read the dark history before though. Good report this :thumb
 

Seffy

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Excellent :thumb
Nature really is starting to take over in places here isn't it!
 
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