Report - St Joseph's Missionary College, Mill Hill, London - August 2013

Seffy · Aug 26, 2013

St Joseph's Missionary College, Mill Hill, London

Seffy, whodareswins and END-PROC.

Some history - for anyone who hasn't seen it. This most certainly hasn't been stolen from anyone else's report...

The St Joseph's Foreign Missionary Society (Mill Hill Missionaries) was founded at Mill Hill in 1866 by Father Herbert Vaughan (1832-1903). It was the first catholic missionary society to be founded in England.
Ordained at the age of 22, Vaughan determined to devote himself to missionary work. Not strong enough himself for the vigours of overseas work, he aimed to achieve this via the establishment of a missionary training college; he was encouraged in his plans by his friend Father (later Cardinal) Manning (1808-1892) and by Cardinal Wiseman (1802-1865).
In 1863 Vaughan embarked on a tour of Central and South America and of California to raise funds for the new College. A year after his return to England in 1865, he was able to rent a house in Mill Hill about ten miles north of London. Under conditions of some poverty, the house operated as the new missionary training school, that of St Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions. Following further fund raising initiated by Archbishop Manning in 1868, the building of a new college on a freehold site nearby was completed in 1871; at the time it served a community of 34 students.
Later that year, the first missionary endeavour of St Joseph's was realised. Rome assigned the evangelization of the recently freed black population of the southern states of the USA. To this end, Vaughan himself travelled to America with his first four missionary priests. This led to the successful establishment of a mission in Baltimore, out of which developed, by 1892, a separate society, that of the Josephite Fathers. In 1872 Vaughan became Bishop of Salford and left Mill Hill though he remained Superior General of the Missionary Society, a cause that was always to be close to his heart.

After a very long but absolutely fantastic night, this was the last site of our road trip to London. Having seen lots of people do it, I thought we should jump abaord the bangwagon and see it for ourselves!
It's safe to say that quite a lot has changed since the first reports starting going up, and the demolition teams have been on the place big time.
There were some rather nice views of the local town from the top and from the tower too. That being said, I think I've knocked a few more years off my life by going to the top of the tower as the amount of pigeon leavings was just ridiculous! To add to that, the staircases are coming close to collapsing, which made it even more sketchy. If you do want to go up the tower, you've been warned!

Cheers to sirjonnyp for some deets about the place, made for a nice simple and quick entrance.

On with some pictograms.