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St Joseph's Seminary - Jan 2015 | Oblivion State Urban Exploration

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St Joseph's Seminary - Jan 2015

-Raz-

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This place is the best I have visited so far and I seem to find something new every time! On my most recent visit I think I got rather lucky having a stroll around the ground floors without the ear piercing alarm going off! can see myself revisiting this place a lot :D

St Joseph's Seminary was founded in 1880 by Bishop Bernard O'Reilly

It was to be the Seminary serving the North West of England.

The college was formally opened in 1883 and was situated in Walthew Park, Upholland

(the geographic centre of the Diocese of Liverpool).

The first Junior Seminary of the Diocese was founded at St Edward's College in 1842 as a Catholic 'classical and commercial school' under the direction of the secular clergy.

It was established in Domingo House, a mansion in Everton.

Its President for the next forty years was to be Monsignor Provost John Henry Fisher.

When the Junior Seminarians moved to St Joseph's the school was taken over by the Christian Brothers..

(who ran St John Rigby College in Orrell) and continues to this day and now serves as the Liverpool Cathedral Choir School.

In recognition of the heritage owed to St Edward's College one of the two chapels at Upholland was consecrated as the St Edward the Confessor Chapel.

Along with Ushaw College (the other seminary in Northern England) scholars for priesthood studied and were ordained at the college.

Up until the second Vatican Council boys as young as 11 years of age entered the Junior Seminary before progressing to the senior Seminary at 18.

In 1972 following the changes of Vatican 2 the two junior seminaries of St Joseph's and Ushaw merged at Upholland, and in 1975, with declining numbers from Ireland offering themselves for the (now) Archdiocese of Liverpool the Senior seminary moved to Ushaw.

St Joseph's continued to offer boarding school education for boys considering a vocation until 1987.

Up to 1991, the building housed a small group of students who were still interested in a vocation to the priesthood, but rather than being schooled within the premises, they attended St John Rigby College, Orrell.

Following the end of the seminary training and boarding education St Joseph's became home to the Northern Institute and was used as a retreat and conference centre for the Archdiocese under the leadership of Msgr John Devine.

The election of Archbishop Patrick Kelly saw the controversial decision to close St Joseph's altogether and the property was sold to Anglo International who instructed AEW Architects for the conversion of the Grade 2 listed RC Seminary to 92 apartments, with 220 new build enabling units. The major controversies of the decision were the ongoing financial viability of St Joseph's (it 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.


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Thanks for looking :) (y)

 
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hamtagger

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Bangin set of pics mate (y)

Unfortunately our 18 hour recce here proved fruitless thanks to an almost hurricane making our access like a skating rink :(

 

-Raz-

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Thanks mate and yeah it was rather slippy on one of our visits in the snow!

 

The_Raw

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Excellent set of pics there mate, that fisheye is working a treat (y)

 

skeleton key

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Thats looking better and better as the decay increases

Cool share Raz (y)

 

shaddam

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Nice little report there Raz =]

:comp

 
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