The former orphanage opened in 1872 and five years later St Joseph's Hospital for the Sick and Poor, which eventually became Mount Street Private Hospital, opened next door. Both were built by wealthy widow Maria Holland who gave £10,000 for each project at a time when Preston had one of the worst mortality rates in the country.
The site has been vacant since 2003 and permission was granted a year later to transform the orphanage and hospital into luxury homes. Demolition work has been ongoing since May 2022 – the same month in which the buildings were badly damaged by a fire which took 10 fire engines to put out – but the site is still yet to be fully demolished.
In February of this year an urban explorer from Leyland called Scrappy NW visited the site to capture the derelict scenes and he returned in May 2023 after another fire had ravished the building further.
Scrappy, whose real name is David has been exploring since 2007, and in that time he has explored numerous sites in and around Preston. Find out more about David and take a look at his images below.
Why did Scrappy start urban exploring?
Having begun with just an interest in photography, David says he got into urban exploring “by chance” when a lodger of his encouraged him to explore the old Whittingham Asylum together back in 2007.
David, a 41-year-old electrician, said: “I was just having a wander around, taking pictures, and I thought I quite like this actually. Then when I found online later on, a community of people that did this, I started talking to people and finding more places because once you started looking you started seeing them everywhere, such as the old Odeon and St Joe's Orphanage in Preston, which most of the time nobody even knew they were there.
“It’s the unknown and I'm quite a nosy person it turns out, I like to know what's behind there, what's in there, what was the building used for?”
David also says urban exploring helped him improve his newfound photography skills “because nothing changed. Hardly anybody came by, you just sat there and you had all the time in the world to mess about, to practise.”
What was the reaction like to his visit to St Joseph’s?
David says his pictures of St Joseph’s have led to him receiving many messages from people wishing to tell their stories.
He explained: “People who used to work there, people who used to go there… [and] - because it was Mount Street Hospital - people who were born there; a lot of people from Preston were born at the hospital. They contact me saying ‘ah my mum used to work there, she was a nurse in the hospital etc...’
“Little stories like that people are telling you from their past, all because they saw a couple of photos of yours online that jogged their memory- I think it's quite a nice thing myself.”
David added: “I hardly have any negative feedback from anything I do. If I can't get in, I don't get in, I'm not making an entrance or anything like that.”
Has Scrappy visited anywhere else in Preston?
David has visited many locations in Preston, including the now destroyed Tokyo Jo’s on Church Street and its neighbouring building, the former Preston Odeon. His pictures from this exploration are to be published by the Post next week.
Explaining why he has such an interest in Preston’s history, David said: “Preston was a massive port, it had all this going on and all that's disappeared and it got very quiet… I'm not saying it doesn't have a lot going for it now but times change and you see how things disappear, get forgotten about. It's like rediscovering a little bit of history that you don't always see.”
Take a look at the images from St Joseph’s below:
2. St Joseph’s Orphanage
Another angle of the building taken on May 2, after a fire. Photo: Scrappy NW
