February 2023
The VisitVisited over two days with @stranton and @coolboyslim on the first and solo on the second, I wouldn't normally post something up in this condition but who doesn't like a bit of St Joe's? Got to be honest I've been after this one since at least 2014 and have visited the site 2-3 times each year with no success getting in, which is very surprising considering it has spent the last decade on the tour bus. So when I finally made it in on this occasion I felt a real sense of achievement. The building is currently in a very poor state having recently undergone partial demolition following a fire that destroyed a lot of the more modern parts of the building, luckily the tower and chapel still survive. Sadly our first visit was cut short when a part of local youths also found their way into the building and proceeded to throw things from the upper floors, because of this we promptly made our exit and moved on to our next target. Just like our visit to the nearby Park Hotel I got home that evening and discovered that I had lost the majority of my pictures, so again I found myself back in Preston the next day to redo the hotel and orphanage as a solo visit.
The History
St Joseph's Orphanage was funded and built in 1872 on behalf of a wealthy widow named "Maria Holland" who was frequently donating £10,000 at a time to build the structure as Preston had one of the worst mortality rates in the United Kingdom at the time due to poor housing and low paid mill workers. In 1877 "St Joseph's Institute for the Sick and Poor" was opened. The chapel was added in 1910. The hospital could accomodate around 25 patients at a time and was run by Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of Mercy. St Joseph's Orphanage cared for around 971 children and had two dormitories until it closed in 1954. The top floor of the old orphanage was used for accomodation for the nuns working in the hospital. The hospital cared for a number of British and Belgian soldiers in WW1 and WW2.
Singer George Formby died at the hospital in 1961. The hospital continued to run after the oprhanage closed however it only lasted until 1982. In 1988 the building was converted into a care home which operated smoothly until that finally closed its doors in February 2003. The building has been abandoned ever since. There were plans to convert the building into flats in 2004 an were given the green light but the plans never went ahead. Now in 2020 a company named Czero wants to demolish the majority of the buildings that remain and build new flats around the chapel and tower end of the orphanage once redeveloped. In 2022 a fire broke out and a large section f the building was destroyed, with mainly consisted of the more modern buildings to the west of the site. Demolition work has now started on the site some of the older sections of the structure are being retained as part of a new development on the site.
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Cheers for looking 
Canon EOS 70D, 10-18mm EFS
Canon EOS 70D, 10-18mm EFS
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