Building record MDR6189 - St. Mary's College, Spinkhill, Eckington

The nucleus of Mount St Mary's Roman Catholic College, Spinkhill, is a 17th century house, much altered for the school in 1842 by the architect Joseph Aloysius Hanson. Wings were added in 1859. The new school was built in 1876. (1) Mount St Mary's College was first founded by Jesuit fathers at Stanley Grange near Derby in 1620. After numerous changes, the College was formally opened in 1842 under the dedication of the Immaculate Conception in the hamlet of Spinkhill, a property of the Pole family. The College buildings date, in part, from the 16th and 17th centuries, the Sodality Chapel being the earliest remaining building. Joseph Hansom, an architect and inventor of the Hansom Cab, built the first College-specific buildings in 1840. The Hopkins wing (girls) was constructed a little alter in 1850, and the New College was begun in 1876 and completed in 1912. The school Chapel, was dedicated as a war memorial in 1924. The Ante Chapel enshrines the names of 100 Old Mountaineers who dies in the Great War 1914-18. (3)