u/LostPlacesUK

📍Convent of the Holy Child Jesus

🗺 Hastings, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

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🏚️ The Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, located on Magdalen Road in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, was founded in 1848 by Cornelia Connelly as the mother-house for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. The convent expanded in the mid-19th century with Gothic-style buildings designed by prominent Catholic architects William Wilkinson Wardell and Edward Welby Pugin. The Victorian Gothic chapel, designed by Pugin, was consecrated in 1868. In the 1970s, the order faced a decline in vocations and a falling demand for boarding education. The sisters made the financial decision to transfer the school to the Old Palace in Mayfield, East Sussex. After the nuns left in 1974, the site was used as an international language school until it eventually closed in the 2010s. Today, the building is badly neglected and derelict. The iconic Victorian-era library still remains filled with rare 1st-edition books left totally abandoned and rotting away.

📍Convent of the Holy Child Jesus

🗺 Hastings, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

__________________________________________

🏚️ The Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, located on Magdalen Road in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, was founded in 1848 by Cornelia Connelly as the mother-house for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. The convent expanded in the mid-19th century with Gothic-style buildings designed by prominent Catholic architects William Wilkinson Wardell and Edward Welby Pugin. The Victorian Gothic chapel, designed by Pugin, was consecrated in 1868. In the 1970s, the order faced a decline in vocations and a falling demand for boarding education. The sisters made the financial decision to transfer the school to the Old Palace in Mayfield, East Sussex. After the nuns left in 1974, the site was used as an international language school until it eventually closed in the 2010s. Today, the building is badly neglected and derelict. The iconic Victorian-era library still remains filled with rare 1st-edition books left totally abandoned and rotting away.

Festival House, located in Osmondthorpe, east Leeds, was built in the 1930s and has had many uses in its life. It was originally the laundry for the Leeds Industrial Cooperative Society (LICS) and was constructed in the early 1920s, later becoming Festival Foods Ltd in 1955 which produced food hampers and ice cream. The front was constructed in a striking red-brick Art Deco style. Festival Foods closed its doors in 2020 and since then the building has stood derelict, becoming a blight on the landscape in a mainly residential area. Plans to redevelop the site into a mix of 56 one and two-bed apartments has been put forward but as of May 2026 nothing has gone ahead.