St Joseph’s Orphanage

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 accommodation 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.