History of Maryvale

The site of Maryvale has been in Catholic occupation since the Middle Ages. Formerly 'Oscott House', it came to the Church in 1702 at the bequest of Father Andrew Bromwich who had inherited this property from his family. From 1794 to 1838 it was the home of Oscott College, the first Seminary to open in England after the reformation. During this time the historic Chapel of the Sacred Heart was inaugurated.

 

In 1846 after the removal of the college to the larger purpose-built premises three miles away, John Henry Newman and his community who had recently been received into the Church were granted the former seminary as a house of retreat and study, although they did not stay there long. It was Newman and his followers who gave it the name 'Maryvale' after St Philip Neri's church in Rome, and it is specified in the Papal Brief as the location of the first English Oratory of St Philip in 1848.  The following year , after the Oratory moved to another location in Birmingham, saw Maryvale become the Novitiate of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and then from 1851 onwards, right until 1980, another religious community, the Sisters of Mercy, ran an orphanage in the building and established a school for poor children. In 1980 it became a catechetical centre for the archdiocese of Birmingham and the present Catholic college for theology and catechesis developed out of the Adult Centre for Catechetics opened by Bishop Dwyer in 1980.