Bishop Eton Monastery L16 250 years old...

"The use of the site dates back to 1776 when Hezekiah Kirkpatrick built the house to serve as a school for boys, the "Eton of the North", hence the name Eton House. Unfortunately the venture failed and in 1843 the house become the residence of the Roman Catholic Bishops, Brown and Sharples and assumed the name Bishops' Eton.

With the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850, Bishop Brown became Bishop of Liverpool (Bishop Sharples died that year) and the house became vacant. With need to provide for the thousands of Irish refugees arriving in Liverpool as a result of the potato fame many Catholic Religious Congregations were invited to the city, and the Redemptorists occupy Bishop Eton in 1851.

HEZEKIAH KIRKPARTICK - H K 1776

The building can be seen as having a place in the emergenceof formal education, the Catholic emancipation in Britain and Ireland and as part of a significant social and economic period in the local history of Liverpool.

Historical value

The building remains in use today having gone through a number of changes in use and therefore provides a link between the past and the present reflecting aspects of peoples lives over the period.

Whilst the original house is Georgian the changes in use have brought about some significant alterations, adaptations and additions which in themselves chart the development of style and design in the nineteenth century.

An important association is that with Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin who during the 1840s was commissioned by the bishops to design and build a small private chapel more or less on the site of the present church. When the Redemptorists took over the site in 1851 the the decision was made to build a new larger chapel and as Pugin died in 1852 his son Edward was given this commission." Heritage Statement